


The Mr. Lambert Effect

by Lenore



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Challenge: Glamberts Big Bang, First Time, M/M, Romance, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-31
Updated: 2010-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-11 09:20:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenore/pseuds/Lenore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A high school AU.  Tommy is a bored  senior counting down the days until freedom. Spring semester gets a lot more interesting when substitute teacher Mr. Lambert takes over in history class.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mr. Lambert Effect

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to [](http://cosmic.livejournal.com/profile)[**cosmic**](http://cosmic.livejournal.com/) for all her insight on this story and to my dear [](http://no-detective.livejournal.com/profile)[**no_detective**](http://no-detective.livejournal.com/) for beta reading and research help and encouragement every step of the way. It would never have been finished without her! The wonderfully talented [](http://peculiar-mind.livejournal.com/profile)[**peculiar_mind**](http://peculiar-mind.livejournal.com/) made gorgeous art for the story. It's embedded in the text, or you can follow the link to check it out. Please let her know how awesome it is!

Today is officially the longest day of Tommy's life. Oh, sure, he thought the same thing yesterday and the day before that and pretty much every day since the semester began, but this is really it, the most interminable seven hours in the history of ever. It's like time is just… broken or something. The minute hand on the big clock over the door nudges forward one excruciating little tick at a time, like a total bitch, standing between him and freedom.

Tommy slumps in his seat at the back of the classroom, notebook open on his desk, not for actual note-taking, but scribbling lines of poetry or song lyrics or whatever the hell. Not that he's doing much of that, either. Mostly, he divides his time between picking at the hole in the knee of his jeans and staring hopelessly into space. He's eighteen, and in three months he'll say fuck off to Burbank High School forever, and until then he's stuck in the suspended animation of total boredom.

It seems hard to believe now that when Mrs. Cavanaugh's water broke, right there in the cafeteria during the second lunch period, and she'd been rushed off to the hospital to give birth to her baby, Tommy and everyone else in sixth period history had secretly celebrated. They'd assumed Mrs. Cavanaugh out on maternity leave meant a substitute, which meant a free-for-all for the rest of the semester.

Instead, they'd gotten Mr. Lyrus, the assistant principal, who'd taught at a military school for twenty years.

The fascist tactics had begun the first day he'd taken over. "Okay, let's get this straight. Just because your teacher is out doesn't mean the learning stops. You all have the textbook. You'll spend the period quietly studying it for the rest of the semester. If I hear one peep out of anybody, you're going to the office."

Mr. Lyrus had earned the reputation for being a stone-cold bastard by calling kids' parents if he thought they had an attitude problem and handing out detentions for things like chewing gum in class. Rumor was he'd actually made Kent Clements, star pitcher on the varsity baseball team, burst into tears when he'd been caught with a spray paint can outside the gym. Or possibly he'd peed his pants; reports varied. Whatever the actual case, Kent Clements had lurked around the halls, red-faced and looking persecuted, for a good week afterward.

So, yeah. Sixth period is about as un-free-for-all-y as it can get. Of course, nobody actually reads the textbook, because _come on_, but nobody utters a word either. Tommy has begun to believe it's possible to drown in silence.

It's about two seconds later than the last time Tommy desperately consulted the clock when the door swings open. Immediately, twenty-four pairs of eyes fasten on it, because they're all that desperate for the least bit of novelty. A tall, dark-haired guy steps inside, young-looking, bright-eyed, a riot of freckles everywhere. Mr. Lyrus frowns at the guy's jeans and T-shirt.

"Hi, I'm the new substitute," the guy says, offering his hand with an easy smile, as if he doesn't notice Mr. Lyrus giving him the squint-eyed look of disapproval. "I came in to fill out some papers, and they said in the office that I could get a head start if I wanted."

Mr. Lyrus presses his mouth into a thin line. "I wasn't told anything about this."

"You want to go check with them? I can handle things here." The guy beams at the class.

Tommy has seen the enthusiastic sort before, with their faces as shiny as a new penny, brimming over with wide-eyed notions about educating the next generation or some bullshit like that. They invite students to call them by their first names and don't understand when no one gives a crap about the Battle of Antietam or whatever. It usually ends in tears. Some of them don't make it past lunch.

"Hey, guys, I'm Mr. Lambert," the substitute says once Mr. Lyrus is gone. "Or, actually, you can call me Adam if you want. I just finished my last semester at Cal State LA, and I'm pretty psyched about this gig. Some more teaching experience for me, some fun with history for you guys—it's going to be awesome!"

A student teacher. Oh, that should be good. This one might quit before he's even officially supposed to start.

"So, I talked to Mrs. Cavanaugh yesterday—she and the baby are doing great, by the way, and she says hi. Anyway, I hear you guys are doing a big comprehensive review this semester to help get you ready for college, which is really cool. I just want to get a feel for how far you've gotten in the material. So, the first emperor of Rome. Can anyone tell me who it was?" He looks around expectantly.

No one raises a hand. A feeling sparks in the air like a militia preparing for an armed standoff. _You're not going to make us answer any freakin' history questions._

"O-kay," Adam says slowly. "How about you?" He points to Missy Klein in the second row.

She stares back blankly. It's possible that she might actually know the answer, but she never talks, not that Tommy has ever heard anyway.

Adam frowns and moves on to Zane Kilpatrick, one of the knuckleheads on the football team, who says with a smirk, "Your mama?"

The class snorts with amusement, for about two seconds, until Adam says, dry as dust, "So, I guess you don't actually have to be funny to make you guys laugh, huh? Good to know."

Zane glowers darkly. Tommy has to smile. He's always kind of hated that asshole.

"First emperor of Rome? Anybody?" Adam scans the room, and his gaze lands on Tommy.

An answer blips through Tommy's head, completely unexpectedly, since it's not like he's ever had much use for history, even before Mr. Lyrus turned the class into prison camp with textbooks. It's probably not even the right answer, but whatever. He'll throw _Adam_ a bone.

"Augustus?" His voice lilts up uncertainly.

Apparently it's the right answer, because Adam breaks into a huge smile, dazzling and focused right at Tommy, which makes Tommy blink, remembering that thing where you're not supposed to look directly into the sun. Warmth settles in his stomach, jittery and kind of disturbing, and whatever Adam says next goes whooshing right over his head. He can't seem to stop staring.

It's stupid, whatever the hell this reaction is. So some dorky substitute gave him a dorky smile because he stumbled onto the right answer? So what? Tommy slouches in his seat, arms crossed, chin tilted down at the floor. He doesn't look away quite fast enough, though, and catches the amused expression that flits across Adam's face, like he's the seen the sullen teenager routine (that's what Tommy's mom calls it) far too many times to take it seriously.

"Okay, so who can tell me what kind of government Sparta had?"

Tommy keeps his mouth shut for the rest of the class, but that stubborn warmth in his belly refuses to go away.

If Tommy were anything like awake the next morning when he arrives at school, no doubt he would be busily calculating the odds that Mr. Lambert won't last the day, but the fact is, Tommy isn't much of a morning person. He shuffles through the front doors, head down, feet dragging, brain fuzzy. He has a test in first period, and he got maybe three hours of sleep last night, not because he was studying. _Tommy, you let your grades slide too much, and you might not even graduate._ That's what Tommy's mom said, frowning over his last report card, but Tommy figures Burbank High is as eager to get rid of him as he is to get rid of it. Besides, who the hell cares if he graduates? He just wants to be finished.

A group of girls down at the end of the hall catches his attention, a big circle of them, jostling each other, their voices rising, high-pitched and excitable. Tommy thinks _cat fight!_ with glee only to notice an instant later a spiky dark head at the center of the chaos, towering over everyone else. Adam leans down, listening carefully, shining that _I believe the children are the future_ smile on everyone competing for his attention.

Curly red hair makes Tommy do a double-take. That's Cecile Daniels, right there in the center of the cooing maelstrom, the girl who laughed in Tommy's face last semester when he asked her to go hear a band with him. She's staring at Adam, not with a few stray stars in her eyes but whole fucking constellations. _It's just because there's no other male teacher in school who's not, like, practically on Social Security,_ Tommy thinks sourly.

Still, it's only 7:33 in the morning. That leaves an entire day for soul-crushing despair to happen, and Tommy fully expects that by the time he trudges into sixth period Mr. Lambert will be waving the white flag, ready to run for his life. Because there's such a thing as precedent, and high school has been grinding the optimism out of people since some sadistic bastard invented the institution.

Adam seems determined to thwart all of Tommy's expectations, however. He has actually grown more chipper as the day has gone along, if that's even possible, doling out a big smile and a nod for each student as they herd into sixth period. Something about all the freckles makes him seem especially cheerful, and the sleeves of his white button-down shirt are rolled up to his elbows, as if he's ready to get down to some serious educating. He wears his gray argyle sweater vest without even a hint of irony, and he stands at the head of the classroom, easy and confident, like he owns the place. There appears to be zero chance of him ending in tears.

Tommy supposes the first thing he's learned from Mr. Lambert is: History…not an infallible predictor of the future.

Adam claps his hands together animatedly. "Okay, so today we're going to talk some more about ancient Rome."

The usual delaying tactics begin at once.

Kristy Bellflower's hand shoots into the ai. "Is there going to be a test on this?"

Adam's expression goes thoughtful. "The thing is, life is pretty much a test, you know? You can never guess what's coming at you. Never know what's going to turn out to be important. So you have to be ready for everything."

"Um—"

"That's a yes," Adam clarifies. "So—"

"Mr. Lambert?" Ben Darden pipes up. "I need to go to the bathroom."

"I guess that makes this your chance to work on strengthening your bladder muscles?"

Ben frowns, trying to do the advanced math. "You mean no?"

"Yep. Okay, now ancient Rome—"

"Why do we even need to know this stuff?" Zane Kilpatrick grumbles.

Sonja Ananaia, senior class super brain, whips her head around to glare at him. "Because some of us are going to Stanford next year."

"_Some of us are going to Stanford next year_…" Zane mimics.

Adam holds up his hands. "Guys, guys, enough. You seriously need to hear this. You're not going to believe how awesome this whole Roman Empire thing is."

He launches into the lecture, although it's missing the usual deadly monotone of history blah-blah-blah. Actually, Adam makes it sound a little like the plot of a movie, and whenever Tommy's gaze wanders in Adam's direction, he has this look on his face, like he's letting them in on the best gossip ever. Tommy still whiles away the class scribbling in his notebook, but now in the midst of _i am like a bubble blow...pop... blow...pop... blow...pop..._, there are things like _Hannibal kicked Roman ass, but later Rome burned Carthage to the ground, oops_.

On the third day, Adam must figure he's got them right where he wants them, because he springs this little ambush on them, "I noticed you guys have gone all semester without writing one paper, and, yeah, no. That's not going to work. So. Five pages. Three sources. Due four weeks from today." He actually rubs his hands together, like it's exciting or something.

The class disagrees, with a chorus of: _Oh, come on!_ and _We only have three months left of school_ and _Papers suck!_

Zane Kilpatrick even goes so far as to declare, "I'm not doing it."

Adam nods, as if mutiny is a perfectly acceptable academic choice. "Great! Because summer school is going to be awesome. I've got this stuff on Napoleon I want to do—" He waves his hands. "Seriously. You're going to love it."

And, sure, he's trying to teach Zane a lesson, but it's equally clear that the idea of lecturing on the tiny French dude genuinely gets Adam going. Tommy wants to think mercilessly mocking things about that, but he can't, because Adam is kind of endearing with all his dorky enthusiasm.

Things get even freakier when the bell rings, and Adam dismisses them, with a smiling "Okay, try to stay out of trouble, huh?" and Tommy's feet get stubborn on him, refusing to budge past Adam's desk.

"Tommy. What's up?" Adam looks at him with a smile.

God. Tommy likes the way his name sounds when Adam says it. Not that Adam hasn't said it before, but that was just taking the roll and calling on him in class, not like this, which feels somehow more personal, with Adam just breathing distance away, looking at him so intently. And, wow, how has Tommy never noticed Adam's eyes before? Because they're so blue… Tommy wants to come up with some totally awesome metaphor, but every scrap of poetry falls right out of his head.

Adam's forehead creases more deeply the longer Tommy stands there staring at him. "Hey, are you okay?" He focuses even more intensely, like Tommy is the only thing he can see, and that's so not helping Tommy become any less tongue-tied.

When he does at last manage, "Uh, yeah," it comes out in a high-pitched squawk.

"Yeah?" Adam says uncertainly.

"Yeah. It's just—the paper?"

Some of the shine goes out of Adam's expression. "Oh, come on. Not you, too."

"No!" Tommy practically pulls something he shakes his head so hard. "I just—Hannibal?"

Adam blinks. "I'm going to assume we're not talking about _The A-Team_?"

Tommy laughs nervously. "I was thinking I could write my paper on him? The library is on my way home?"

"Really?" Adam leans forward, actually biting his lip, looking just ridiculously hopeful and pleased and, and… God.

"I just don't know where to start?" Tommy admits.

Adam beams, and Tommy's stomach turns upside down, and everything in his world feels strangely right. "Oh, hey, I can totally help with that. There's so much good stuff that—I know! Let's make a list."

He fishes a piece of scrap paper out of a pile on his desk and hums under his breath as he scribbles titles, more books than Tommy has read in his entire life. Tommy watches with a rapidly escalating sense of alarm as Adam reaches for a second sheet of paper.

Adam laughs when he glances up. "Don't worry. You still only have to pick three. I just, you know." He waves his hand. "Get a little carried away sometimes." He smiles, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and it's so warm and so beautiful and so, so—just for Tommy.

Maybe writing a stupid paper is actually worth it.

"Barfed up Korean barbeque. Boiled monkey brains." Mia cranes her neck, lips pursed as she considers. "I'm going to go with baked goat turds."

"Um, shut up?" Because _gross_, and also the lunchroom lady has a crazed, possibly homicidal glint in her eyes, wielding her ladle like a weapon. Tommy offers a nervous smile that he hopes says, _If you go postal, please remember I'm not the one who called your food goat turds?_

"French fries. Thank _God_." Mia yanks him by the sleeve. "Come on, let's get food that won't kill us."

The lunchroom lady narrows her eyes. Tommy ducks his head and hurries after Mia. He grabs fries and ice cream out of the freezer case, because, yeah, Mia may not be tactful, but she does have a point. The edible options are few and far between.

Mr. Lambert has gotten stuck on lunchroom monitor duty, the way new teachers do, and Tommy and Mia navigate around his fan club, a handful of eager-eyed girls and a few guys shyly waiting their turn, darting grim glances around to see who might be watching and making fun. It shouldn't be so annoying, but, wow, it really, really is. _He's a teacher, not a fucking rock star_, Tommy thinks darkly.

"Lunch of champions, huh?"

It takes Tommy a moment to realize that Adam's smile, wide and sunny, is directed at him. _Take that, you fuckers_ flits through Tommy's head as the fan club gives him a collective slit-eyed glare.

All Tommy actually manages to _say_, though, is, "Um—"

Adam winks, and Tommy almost loses his grip on his tray. He stumbles after Mia to their table by the windows not really feeling his feet. Midday sun streams in, and Tommy blinks, warm and dazed. God, he's just as fucking ridiculous as those stupid fan club fuckers.

Mia notices none of this, happily chattering on, "So, I told Jenny that faux mullet thing she's got going totally does nothing for her, but would she listen? No. And it's not like putting a pink streak in it is going to help anything either—"

Tommy had felt even more ridiculous the other day during his jaunt to the library. He'd managed to pretty well steer clear of the place for the last four years, except for that "The Library is Your Friend" module they'd done in tenth grade English. For a solid week, they'd met in the library instead of their classroom, hovering around the card catalog, shifting their weight and yawning, while their teacher Miss Larkin went on this long, looping rant about how computers could never truly replace the Dewey Decimal system, and ebooks were an abomination dreamed up by soulless corporate overlords who probably didn't even read, and they should all take a big, deep breath to drink in the scent of paper and ink and old wood, because one day they'd have to tell their grandchildren what an honest-to-God library smelled like.

Maybe if Miss Larkin had been more focused and Tommy had been a better listener, he wouldn't have been so hopelessly befuddled about how to find the titles on Adam's list. He meandered through the stacks, eventually finding his way to a big mauve, hand-printed sign that declared "History." He stalled there, eyeing the books warily, faded and fat-spined and no doubt narcolepsy-inducing.

"Can I help you?" Mrs. Sonnenstein, the school's head librarian, gave him a look over the tops of her glasses, squinty and suspicious.

"Um." Tommy thrust Adam's list at her. "It's for school," he added, as if afraid of being accused of intellectual curiosity.

Mrs. Sonnenstein looked at the paper and then at Tommy and then back at the list. Slowly, slowly, a smile spread across her face.

"I only need three of them!" Tommy blurted out in self-defense.

But it was too late. The smile didn't waver, and there was a gleam in Mrs. Sonnenstein's eyes as if she was mentally filling out the paperwork to adopt Tommy.

"Oh, we're going to get you all set up, don't you worry. Although—" She tapped a finger to her chin as she looked the list over. "You'd be better off with five or six of these sources to really do Hannibal justice."

Tommy staggered out of there an hour later, hefting the stack of dusty volumes she'd foisted on him. At home, he shoved the books under his bed, squeezing them in next to his porn collection, and, yeah, he'd probably never be able to jerk off to any of those magazines ever again.

Mia's voice drifts in through his preoccupation. "I seriously don't think she has any reason to get so pissed at me. I was just being honest. And it was, like, for her own good."

"Mmm," he says on autopilot.

Across the way, Adam's fan club has finally disbanded, and he's hanging out with Miss Porter, the other teacher on duty. They seem suspiciously buddy-buddy. Miss Porter puts her hand on Adam's arm whenever she makes a point, and Adam smiles nonstop at everything she says, and when she leans in to whisper in his ear, he laughs loudly enough that half the people in the cafeteria turn to look. What the hell ever, Tommy thinks. If Adam wants to waste his time on Miss Porter, that's his problem.

When he finally glances back, he finds Mia staring at him, exasperated.

"What?"

She whacks him on the arm.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"You haven't been listening to a word I've said!"

"Yes, I have!"

She makes an _oh please_ face. "What did I just say?"

Okay, so she has him there. "Um, sorry?"

She rolls her eyes. "I was asking if you want to hang out after school today."

"Well—" Tommy darts a glance over at Adam and weighs the dread he feels about the billion pages of research material he has squirreled away under his mattress against the possibility of seeing Adam's face light up like Tommy has single-handedly shored up his faith in studentkind. "I kind of have something I need to do?"

Mia gives him a relentlessly inquisitive look over the rim of her diet Coke can, but Tommy really isn't up to supplying details, embarrassing as they are. Luckily the bell rings before he has to make up some lame-ass excuse.

"You're home early." Tommy's mom glances up from the pile of bills she's sorting through at the kitchen table. "You didn't want to hang out with Mia?"

He shrugs. "I've got things to do. You know, homework and stuff."

She raises an eyebrow. It's not like homework has ever been a big priority with him before.

"We have a new history teacher," Tommy mumbles, as if that explains something, and then heat creeps up the back of his neck, because, oops, maybe it explains way too much. "Um, I've got this paper?"

"Well, you'd better get busy then." His mom flashes a smile before going back to hunting and pecking over the calculator keys.

Tommy shuts the door to his room behind him, and then thinks twice and locks it, with an air of stealth, like he's planning on smoking weed or printing out some counterfeit twenties on his half-busted HP color printer. Being a diligent student is going to take some getting used to.

The books smell musty and neglected when he pulls them out from under the bed, like no one has given a crap about them for longer than Tommy has been alive, which is a pretty safe bet. He hunches over the stack of them on his bed, clueless about where to start. Finally, he just closes his eyes and grabs one at random, opens it up and nearly balks. The book weighs more than he does, and the printing is microscopic.

_Adam thinks this stuff is interesting_, he reminds himself, then lets out a sigh and starts to read.

It's not so bad once he gets going, and after a while he stops looking up to check the time every thirty seconds. Maybe he's even a teeny-tiny bit curious about what happens when Hannibal gets to the Alps. He's so engrossed that when his phone rings he nearly jumps out of his skin, like he's just been caught jerking off. Only possibly this is actually more embarrassing. He flops a pillow onto the book, hiding the evidence, not that this particularly makes any sense, and checks who's calling.

"Hey, Mia," he says, a little breathless and a lot suspicious-sounding. He sucks at keeping secrets. It's a good thing he has no ambitions about being a spy.

"Okay, what the hell is up?"

"What?"

"Don't you what me! You're acting all squirrelly and shit. And not telling me what's going on. I'm your best friend. That's so not on."

"I'm not acting squirrelly! Nothing's going on!"

Mia ignores his denials as if they're not even worth acknowledging. "Oh my God, did you knock up some girl?"

"No!"

"Are you doing drugs?" Her voice sharpens with suspicion. "That you're not sharing with me?"

"No!" He lets out a long breath. "It's just—" The corner of the book jabs against his leg, and the thing is: He could tell her the truth. "It's nothing, okay? I swear. I'll see you tomorrow."

He hangs up with Mia still grumbling in his ear, because he really _can't_ tell her. He's got his reputation to think of, and she wouldn't believe him anyway.

Here's another thing Tommy soon learns from Adam: school is a lot harder when you're actually making an effort. One week bleeds into the next as he gets sucked into the time-consuming world of academic initiative. He stays up late struggling through pages of Polybius, because Mrs. Sonnenstein insisted his analysis wouldn't be complete without it. His Grand Theft Auto score goes all to hell, neglected in favor of _Hannibal: Enemy of Rome_ and _Cannae: Hannibal's Greatest Victory_. Somehow he's turned into someone who reads books with colons in their titles.

He writes about a _billion_ outlines, which is only a slight exaggeration, and scraps one after the next as not quite good enough to show Mr. Lambert. The worst part is that now he's started asking himself WWMLD (What Would Mr. Lambert Do?), he doesn't feel right about dicking around in his other classes either.

"Okay, that's it, Tommy Joe Ratliff. I feel like I haven't seen you in _weeks_! What the hell is going on?"

Tommy jumps at the sudden blare of Mia's voice, banging his elbow against his locker, bobbling his books.

"Nothing!" he insists defensively. "I've just been busy."

"Uh-huh," Mia says noncommittally, which translates to _bullshit_, and snatches a book off the pile.

She reads the title out loud and wrinkles her nose. "Seriously?"

He snatches the book back. "I'm writing my history paper."

Mia stares.

"What? It's an assignment." He closes the door to his locker—or maybe slams it, just a little—and sets off down the hall.

Mia, never one to be put off easily, follows, intent on walking him to sixth period, even though her class is on the other side of the building. "Yeah, like having an assignment has ever mattered to you before—" She trails off, giving him a sharp look, and then she starts to laugh. "Oh, _Tommy_. Baby. Not the Mr. Lambert Effect. Not you too."

She blows a kiss at Brandon Webb, a thick-necked slab of beef whose already diminished mental capacity hasn't been helped by playing football. Brandon does a double take at Mia's cleavage, his dull-witted eyes practically popping out of his head.

Tommy makes a face. "That guy. Really? And what the hell is the Mr. Lambert Effect?"

Mia shrugs. "What can I say? Sometimes I like them big and stupid. And don't even pretend you haven't noticed that Mr. Lambert can talk about, like, Zoroastrian belief systems and shit, and have the whole class practically coming in their pants." Her expression turns thoughtful. "I'm pretty sure Ray Jenks fantasizes about him when he jerks off."

"Ewww!" Only now that the idea of Adam and s-e-x has entered Tommy's head, it doesn't seem to want to go anywhere. He feels a flush spreading all the way to his ears. "Anyway, it isn't—that's not why I—" He's tried very hard not to put a word to this thing with Mr. Lambert, but now that Mia has opened her big mouth, there's no getting around it. God. He's a fucking _senior_. Way too old to have some stupid crush on his substitute teacher!

Mia laughs. "You're just adorably oblivious, that's what you are." She kisses him on the nose and laughs even harder when he glares. "Well, here we are. Have fun daydreaming." She scampers off before Tommy can exact the appropriate retribution.

Inside, Mr. Lambert sits at his desk, sorting index cards, and he greets Tommy's curious glance with a playful wink. Tommy vows feebly not to think about s-e-x.

"So, who's ready to play Name That Awesome—or, hey, Infamous—Historical Figure?" Adam nods and smiles, like he's trying to will them into being excited about the game with the sheer power of his geeky glee. Which, hey, he probably can. That would totally be his super power.

Kristy Bellflower's hand shoots into the air. "Do we have to phrase the answer in the form of a question?"

"Nope," Adam tells her cheerfully, "and there's no money in it if you win."

"What _do_ we get out of this?" Zane Kilpatrick asks sullenly.

Adam's mouth quirks up. "The satisfaction of not being hopelessly ignorant?"

He breaks them into groups, and it's just Tommy's luck that he gets stuck with the class rejects. Zane is a moron on the best of days, even when he's not talking back to Adam, and Tommy hates the guy on general principle for all the times he and his football buddies have mocked Tommy for wearing eyeliner. Javy Rodriguez is at least smart, although he makes no secret of the fact that he thinks math and science are the only subjects worth caring about. Missy Klein… well, who knows? It's not like she actually talks.

Adam explains the game's rules and adds, "Before we get started, each group needs to pick a spokesman."

"That's me," Tommy tells the dream team before they can get any ideas.

There's bickering amongst the other groups as they choose their leaders, and when that finally settles down, Adam starts firing questions. Tommy leans forward in his seat, fingers curled around the edge of the desk, a dizzy feeling in his stomach, the way he gets on roller coasters. So, okay, it's not like they're competing to be Adam's favorite. Not exactly. But whatever the hell. Tommy totally intends to win.

The first question goes to Sonja Ananaia's team, _Who said 'If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, no controls on government would be necessary'?_, which Sonja answers almost before Adam has finished asking, not even pretending to care what the rest of her group has to say. Fucking valedictorian, Tommy thinks.

Sonja tosses her hair when Adam awards her team a point for the right answer; the look on her face says, _There's a reason why I got accepted early decision to Stanford_. It puts a little damper on her smugness, though, when Adam adds, "Let's just remember that this is a team thing, okay? I want everyone participating."

Tommy's group is up next—_Who founded the Gupta Empire?_—and Tommy leans in to confer, because Adam said so, not because he's actually expecting anything from the dream team.

"It's not Einstein," Javy offers oh-so helpfully.

"Your mama!" is Zane's totally predictable contribution.

Missy picks at imaginary lint on her sleeve.

Tommy lets out a sigh. So. All up to him then. He sifts his memory for some hidden knowledge that's somehow seeped in when he wasn't paying attention. Adam begins counting down, _Seven, six, five…_

"Chandra Gupta," Tommy blurts out. He doesn't even know where that came from.

Adam flashes a smile. Tommy darts a triumphant look over at Sonja Ananaia, who scowls back. _It is so on_, he thinks.

At the end of the hour, he and the dream team are tied with Sonja's group for first place, a tribute to sheer determination, and quite possibly another example of the Mr. Lambert Effect in action.

"Okay, lightning round," Adam announces with a dramatic lilt. "One question. One winner. What caricaturist, whose drawings helped bring down Tammany hall leader Boss Tweed, is considered to be 'The Father of the American Cartoon'?"

Fuck if Tommy knows. He darts a frantic look at his team, who all stare back like _what do you want from us?_

"Come on, come on, _think_!" Sonja's voice rises from the other side of the room.

Adam starts to hum the Jeopardy "your time is almost up" music.

"Thomas Nast." It's a whisper, so tiny that at first Tommy thinks he might have imagined it.

He turns to Missy, wild-eyed. "Are you sure?"

She stares back at him, blinking like a baby bird.

"Four, three, two…"

"Thomas Nast!" Tommy shouts.

It's quiet for a moment, long enough for Tommy to hear how ridiculously hard his heart is beating, and then Adam declares, "And the winner is…Team Ratliff!"

"That isn't fair!" Sonja starts, but the bell rings, and Adam short-circuits the rest of her complaint with a cheery, "See you tomorrow!"

"Hey, nice job," Adam says, with a big, congratulatory smile when Tommy makes his way up to the front of the class.

"Um. Thanks." He swallows hard and hopes he's not turning red. "My paper. Um. I started it?"

"Yeah?" Adam gives him an interested look, those blue eyes focused all on him. "You want to show me?"

Tommy nods, even if he does feel like a big dork about it.

"Well, come on then. Lay it on me."

Tommy drags a chair up front, and they settle at Adam's desk, side by side. It feels strangely right, like Tommy belongs there. Adam taps his pen against his lips as he reads, keeping up a running narrative, which sounds mostly positive. It's kind of hard to concentrate, though, when Tommy is busily thinking: _God, Adam smells good_.

For his twelfth birthday, after months of begging his mom, Tommy got his first guitar, a secondhand Fender that he still loves. He's been in bands, on and off, pretty much ever since. The last one played death metal, and they were kind of shitty, Tommy always thought, but whatever. It was a band, and Jeff, the lead singer, talked his mom into letting them practice in the garage. Maybe they would have eventually gotten better if Terry, the drummer, hadn't started fucking Jeff's girlfriend, and the whole thing went to hell.

Now that Tommy is bandless he spends his weekends lurking around clubs, trying to get bouncers to ignore the fact that he looks nothing like his cousin, whose college ID he tries to pass off as his own. If he can't make music himself, he figures, at least he can listen to other people's.

There's a new guy on the door at Buckaroo Bar—if sumo wrestlers hailed from Indiana, that's what this guy would look like. He gives Tommy a glance up and down and frowns at the ID. "Kid, I've taken shits that are older than you."

Tommy opens his mouth to protest—but hey, grain-fed sumo guy who could turn him into a stain on the concrete without working up a sweat—so he just says in a small voice, "Please? I really want to see the band."

Sumo guy makes a face and shakes his head and keeps on shaking it even as he's pointing a finger and saying, "You fuck up and get me in trouble, and I will seriously rip your balls off."

Tommy flashes a grateful smile, never so happy to have his testicles threatened in his life, and hurries inside before sumo guy can change his mind.

The band hasn't taken the stage yet. Tommy cruises over to the bar, orders a Bud, and smirks a little when the bartender hands it over grudgingly. He cranes his neck. There's a seat up front, tucked into a corner, and he squirms his way through the crowd to snag it. Buckaroo is a casual kind of place, which is a nice way of saying it's a total dive. No one announces the band. They just wander out onto the stage, one by one, and pick up their instruments.

Last comes the singer, dark-haired and long-legged and dressed in the right amount of leather. Tommy's mouth literally falls open. It's Adam. Well, sort of. Adam, with every last trace of Mr. Lambert erased. His eyes are dark-lined and more vividly blue than ever, and makeup covers up the freckles that Tommy has come to count almost as friends. He feels a pang about that for a moment, like he's lost something, but then Adam purses his mouth—wetly glossed and softly colored and so fucking pretty—as he fiddles with the microphone stand. Tommy shivers, suddenly certain he'll like every version of Adam Lambert he ever gets to know.

"You all ready to have some fun out there?" Adam growls into the microphone.

The lethargic crowd perks up, apparently no more immune to the Mr. Lambert Effect than anyone in the twelfth grade. Not surprising, since Adam is even more intense on stage, that electric quality of his all mixed up with rock and roll and sex and…Tommy squirms in his seat.

Adam laughs. "Well, it doesn't matter if you're ready. 'Cause here it comes."

They launch into a song, something original, Tommy guesses, since he doesn't recognize it. The band—well, they don't suck, which a part of Tommy can't help but find disappointing. If they totally blew, it would make it so much easier to picture himself up there instead, up there with Adam. Jesus. _Adam_. He grinds his hips, and his voice tumbles into a gravelly octave before reaching up for a high note, big and bell-clear, sex coming off him in waves. Tommy's hands are fucking shaking by the end of the song, and anyone who doesn't want to come in their pants listening to that… well, they've got to be half dead.

It takes Adam until halfway through the second number to spot Tommy in the crowd. Their gazes catch, and a flicker of _what the fuck?_ passes over Adam's face. Then he shakes his head, and looks away, and keeps on swiveling his hips and singing the shit out of "Whole Lotta Love," blowing the hell out of Tommy's mind.

The set is over way too soon as far as Tommy is concerned. Adam clambers down from the stage, taking in congratulations with a big smile, bending in to listen as well-wishers whisper in his ear. People crop up from nowhere, all wanting a piece of Adam, and Tommy's smile slowly deflates. When they're at school, Tommy can kind of squint and make himself believe that Adam is his in some way, but this isn't school. Suddenly it feels a lot less triumphant to have stumbled into this secret life of Adam's when Tommy has no place in it.

He's just starting to think that maybe it's time to go the hell home, and then Adam is right there, standing over him. He doesn't say anything, just crooks his finger, and Tommy trails behind him through the crowd, pretty sure he'd follow Adam just about any-damned-where.

Adam gives the bartender a friendly nod, and the guy slides him a bottle of water and a Corona.

"So." Adam turns the full spotlight of his attention on Tommy. "You want to tell me why I shouldn't take that away from you?" He eyes the beer in Tommy's hand.

Tommy just blinks at Adam for a moment, like he has no idea what this thing called "English" is, and then everything he wants to say comes tumbling out of him, a mess of, "Oh my God you're so fucking awesome why didn't you tell people at school you can sing have you been with your band long Jesus your voice is that even for real fuck just fuck Adam."

He's out of breath by the time he's done, and Adam is watching him, bright-eyed and amused. He crooks an arm around Tommy's shoulder. "Okay, fine. Keep the damned beer." He pulls Tommy over to a table.

"So, you don't go out and get drunk all the time, right?" Adam says conversationally. "You know, lie to me, if you have to."

Tommy laughs, shaking his head. "I'm just here for the music. I, uh—" He shifts in his seat, stupidly nervous all of a sudden. "I'm in a band too." Okay, not technically true, not at the moment, but close enough.

"Yeah?" Adam's expression sharpens with interest. "You sing?"

"Play. Guitar. And, um, other stuff."

"You good?"

"Yeah." There are only a few things in life that Tommy feels certain about, but this is one of them.

Adam gives him a long, speculative look. "I bet you are. Really good."

"Um, I kind of—" Tommy has never had a heart-to-heart with a teacher in his life, never done anything but fade into the background at school, but then again, he's never had a teacher like Adam before. "I really want to make music for a living. It's the only thing I've ever wanted."

Adam leans in, eyes bright and fierce. "Then go for it."

Tommy nods, throat tight, and it's like he's making a promise that Adam will hold him to. "You—seriously, you're so fucking amazing. You should, you should be—" He waves his hand. _Everything_.

Adam shrugs. "The band's been together for a while, hasn't gone anywhere yet. Anyway, I like teaching."

"But—"

"Tell me more about your band, Tommy."

It's firm, but also welcoming, and anyway Tommy wants to, wants Adam to know about him. The story tumbles out, kind of meandering, all the bands, all the false starts. Tommy's not sure it makes a hundred percent sense, except that Adam keeps nodding, encouraging him along, until he finally comes full circle.

"So, yeah, then Jeff threatened to cut Terry's dick off, and that was pretty much the end of that."

Adam laughs. "Yeah. That would kind of fuck up a band's dynamic. You found a new one yet?"

He shakes his head, clamps his mouth shut to keep in what he really wants to say, _It should be me beside you on stage._ Because that's not going to happen, Tommy knows, and _fuck_. He's never wanted anything so much in his life.

"Hey." Adam cranes a glance back over his shoulder. "Underpaid Authority is going to play. You want to—" He jerks his thumb toward the stage.

Tommy nods, and they find places right up at the barrier. Underpaid Authority is a punk-pop local favorite, playing Buckaroo since Tommy was in junior high. Mostly their fans are girls. Mostly those girls like to throw their underwear at the lead singer. That doesn't seem to put Adam off at all. He dances his ass off, hip bumping against Tommy's, and Tommy doesn't know who could resist that. He sure as hell can't.

By the end of the set, they're both dripping sweat, and Adam is smiling, and Tommy just wants to laugh and laugh. Fuck, he feels good.

"Come on." Adam takes him by the arm. "I'm driving you home. No arguments."

Like Tommy would. Just the idea of being alone with Adam in his car makes his heart do acrobatic stunts in his chest.

The ancient Sentra looks like it's survived disasters, plural, both manmade and natural. Adam grins ruefully as he coaxes the engine to life. "It gets me where I'm going. You know, mostly. So, where do you live?"

Tommy gives him directions and then falls quiet, trying to take in every detail, the sag in the passenger seat, the smell of coffee and sandalwood, the way Adam hums under his breath as he drives. They pull up in front of Tommy's house all too soon.

"So, see you Monday." Adam points a finger. "Stay out of trouble."

Tommy laughs and nods and gets as far as opening the door. "I—" He knows what he wants to say, that no one else has ever believed in him, ever encouraged him, but the fear of sounding stupid makes him feel strangled. Suddenly he's sliding across the seat and flinging his arms around Adam's neck and holding on with everything he's got.

"Tommy?" Adam's voice lilts up like a million question marks, and Tommy clings more fiercely. "Hey. Hey. It's okay." Adam folds Tommy up in his arms and strokes a hand comfortingly over his hair.

Tommy pushes his nose against Adam's T-shirt, breathing in, the safest he's ever felt in his life. When it starts to cross that line from kind of weird into totally awkward, he makes himself let go, even though he really doesn't want to. Adam's hand stays curled around Tommy's shoulder, protectively, and he's watching in the close dark, a pinch between his eyebrows.

"You were just really great tonight." Tommy fumbles for the car door and scrambles out before he can humiliate himself any further.

Sunday skitters by even more quickly than usual. The many prayers Tommy sends up to whatever higher power might be able to permanently strike Monday from the calendar go unheeded, proving yet again that nobody gives a shit about the problems of teenagers. He hides behind an extra layer of eyeliner and goes off to school with his shoulders as tense as guitar strings, ready for things to be weird with Adam.

He tramps through the front door and finds Adam surrounded by a throng of admirers in the lobby, all vying for his attention, same-old, same-old. Something about that makes Tommy relax. Adam shoots him a smile, with an edge of concern that disappears when Tommy smiles back, apparently convinced that Tommy hasn't turned into a secret cutter over the weekend.

"I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm totally psyched I got into Fullerton and Fresno both, but, wow, it's so hard to decide." Tara Kelly twists a strand of blond hair around her finger, giving Mr. Lambert a long, adoring look.

Sonja Ananaia nods. "Yeah. That must be tough. I really couldn't handle the not knowing. That's why I'm _so_ glad I got in early decision to Stanford."

Tommy rolls his eyes and continues on past. Adam's voice floats down the hall, "I expect big things from both of you," followed by the girls' pleased giggles, and then Adam's, "And, hey, I want to hear all about it. There's just something I need to take care of right now."

The last thing Tommy expects is to be that something, but there Adam is, at Tommy's side. "So, you never told me where you applied to school."

Tommy snorts. "Yeah. Not much to tell."

"Wait. What?" Adam's forehead scrunches up in this really confused-looking way, which would be fucking adorable if Tommy didn't suspect some serious disappointment was going to follow close on its heels.

"I didn't apply," Tommy explains, bracing for Adam's disapproval like a slap to the face.

"But why not?" Adam asks, the little perplexed crinkle between his eyebrows deepening.

"I'm so done with school. And—you know—" The bottom drops out of Tommy's voice, and he can only hope Adam doesn't notice. "I'm not exactly college material." Suddenly that disappoints _him_, which surprises the fuck out of him.

Adam gives him a long, thoughtful look. "I think you're really underestimating yourself, Tommy. You've shown a lot of initiative in my class. Your grades aren't bad, and your SAT scores are pretty solid."

"How do you know?" Tommy eyes him suspiciously.

Adam throws up his hands. "Okay, you got me! I totally abused my authority to get a look at your file." He shrugs in answer to the question Tommy hasn't even asked yet. "I was curious."

Sneaky warmth uncurls in Tommy's belly, the same way it did the first day Adam set foot in class, and, fuck, he likes that Adam got all nosy about his permanent record. Likes it way too much. "I—uh—anyway like I told you, I want to be a musician."

"They do teach music at college," Adam points out mildly.

Tommy rolls his eyes. "_Boring-ass_ music, and besides, it's too late to apply now."

Adam doesn't particularly look like he agrees, but all he says is, "So, what are you going to do while you're getting the music thing together?"

"Get a job, I guess."

"Doing what?"

"I don't know," he mumbles. "Something."

Tommy has been so focused on making it to graduation that everything beyond is hazy at best. Suddenly that feels precarious, and he doesn't want to think about it anymore. Doesn't want to talk about it, not even with Adam.

"I've got to get to homeroom."

Adam nods, and Tommy strides off, for once glad to be leaving Adam's orbit. He doesn't look back, but he can feel Adam's gaze tracking him down the hall, the stubborn weight of it between his shoulder blades, like this conversation is far from over.

Days later, Tommy is still trying not to think about his future, which from a distance might look suspiciously like he's stewing over it. He's so distracted he doesn't even notice that Alena Shansky is stalking him until he almost falls over her.

"Hey." She brushes her hair, red with magenta streaks out of her eyes, and gives him such a long, direct look that he shifts uneasily.

"Um—hey."

He settles his books for his afternoon classes more firmly in the crook of his arm and starts off down the hall. Alena swings in beside him, keeping pace, which is totally not what Tommy is expecting. The two of them had earth science together last year, but that's pretty much the only connection. In fact, Tommy's not sure they've ever actually spoken. He can't imagine what she wants and keeps waiting for her to tell him, but she seems to have blown through her entire store of conversation with that one little "hey." The trip to the cafeteria is awkwardly silent.

"So—" Tommy glances through the doors, spotting Mia in line. Is this a thing where he's supposed to ask Alena to join them? "Um—" He nods toward the cafeteria. "You want—"

"Oh, yeah. No. I've got third lunch. And—fuck" She bites her lip, toying with the ring threaded through it. "Old Miss Saunders is going to be a pissy bitch if I'm late for calculus again. Later." She makes an abrupt about face, her boots thunk-thunk-thunking as she hurries away.

Mia is laughing when Tommy joins her in the lunch line.

"What?" he demands.

"You have no idea, like _at all_ what that was about, do you?"

_No_, but he's not going to tell her that. He glowers irritably.

"Have you wondered why all kinds of girls are suddenly trying all kinds of stupid shit to get your attention?" He mumbles something incoherent, and her eyes widen. "Oh my God, have you even _noticed_ that girls are trying to get your attention? Tommy Joe Ratliff, how are you so clueless?"

"I'm not—I don't even know Alena Shansky!"

Mia rolls her eyes. "Yeah, like that matters when a girl needs a prom date."

"Prom." Shit, here is something else he totally hasn't thought about at all. "Whatever. It's six weeks away."

"Said just like a guy. So, are you going to ask somebody?"

He completely misinterprets where she's going with the question. "Hey, yeah, we should—as friends—"

"Oh, sweetie, I totally _would_, if I didn't already have a date." She flicks a smile at Brandon Webb, who stares back, slack-jawed and glinty-eyed, gaze riveted on Mia's boobs, as if just the sight of them subtracts IQ points he really can't stand to lose.

"Seriously?"

Mia shrugs. "What can I say? I'm really hoping his dick is proportional."

Tommy sputters, "I don't want to hear anything about that—_ever_."

Mia cackles delightedly, never a good sign. Tommy lets out a long-suffering sigh, suspecting he's going to need to bleach his brain on a regular basis for the rest of the semester.

 

In Adam's class, they're playacting as CNN anchors, recounting events from history as if they're delivering the evening news. The stomach-turning thought of Brandon Webb's junk that Tommy can't quite shake gives him an appropriately grim expression as he reels off the details of Stalin's deportations, a subject he's spent the past three afternoons in the library researching.

Adam nods, smiling when Tommy's done, and that stamp of approval diverts Tommy from Mia's horrible taste in guys and how much it would suck to be exiled to Siberia. The other kids take their turn impersonating Anderson Cooper, and then Adam reminds them to study for their test on Thursday.

"Oh, hey guys, one last thing before the bells rings." Adam scoops the stack of term papers off his desk and strides down the rows of desks, passing them out, narrating as he goes. _Good job_ and _Interesting thesis_ and _Hey, at least you spelled "conquistador" right_. When he hands Tommy's paper back, his expression grows more serious. "Can you stay after class?"

_Shit, shit_. Tommy's heart feels like it's trying to beat right out of his skin. He lowers his eyes to see what kind of fucking awful grade could have gotten him in trouble with Mr. Lambert. Only… it's an A, big and red and scrawled with manic energy like Adam wanted to add a smiley face and only the knowledge that Tommy isn't actually a five-year-old made him restrain himself. Tommy wets his lips and stares at it for a good, long moment before starting to flip the pages. There are notes scribbled in the margins, messy with excitement, things underlined and punctuated with exclamation points. Tommy totally doesn't get why Adam is watching him with such a careful, hooded gaze.

Everyone stampedes as soon as the bell rings, and Tommy drags his feet up to Adam's desk. "You wanted to see me?" But then he can't keep from blurting out what he really wants to ask. "Is something wrong?"

"It's about your paper—"

Which makes no sense, since Tommy got a fucking A, unless… he flashes back to sophomore year when he went through a phase where school didn't seem as lame as all that, and he actually did his work and aced the final, only to have Mr. Green give him the third degree afterward, like Tommy must have cheated, because how else could he have done so well on the test? That was annoying, but _this_, this fucking hurts, because it's _Adam_, who's supposed to fucking believe in him. "Wait. You think—"

"That someone who can write a kick-ass analysis of Hannibal's military strategy should really be applying to college. Here. I got you something." Adam thrusts a sheaf of papers into Tommy's hand.

College applications.

"There are some schools with late admissions deadlines," Adam says quickly before Tommy can protest. "You already sent your SATs to these three. If you get your applications together quickly, you might still be able to start in the fall."

"But—"

Adam holds up a hand. "I know you want music to be your life, but you can pursue that and still get an education. Look, Tommy, if you really don't want to go to college, you don't have to. But at least apply. At least give yourself the opportunity."

His gaze is steady, intense, and Tommy's mouth feels suddenly dry. "I don't know what to—" he says in a small voice, gesturing with the applications.

"Oh, that." Adam waves his hand. "I can help you. Don't let that hold you back, okay?"

"I—" Tommy bites his lip. "I guess I need to think about it?"

Adam nods. "Fair enough. Just don't take too long, because those deadlines are coming up fast." His grin is quick and a little sheepish. "Not that I'm trying to bulldoze you into anything, I _swear_."

"Riiiiight," Tommy says, rolling his eyes, before it occurs to him that, hey, he's talking to _his teacher_ here. But Adam just laughs, and that makes Tommy let out his breath and laugh a little himself. "So. Um. See you tomorrow."

Tommy's almost out the door when Adam calls after him, "You can do anything you want with your life, and that's so exciting, you have no idea."

All the way home, Tommy turns the idea of college over in his head, and despite himself, some of Adam's enthusiasm starts to rub off.

The next afternoon, Tommy doesn't go to the library specifically to get Mrs. Sonnenstein's opinion on the whole college business—that's his story and he's sticking to it—but, hey, if she happens to be around…

She isn't. One of the assistant librarians that Mrs. Sonnenstein bosses around mercilessly sits at the desk, glancing up as Tommy passes without a flicker of interest. Tommy flops down at his usual table. Now what is he supposed to do? He lets out a long breath and pulls the applications from his backpack and stares at them blankly, waiting for this to help him decide what to do with his life.

"Why do you look like someone kicked your puppy? Oh, don't tell me you didn't do well on that paper." Mrs. Sonnenstein looms over him, hawk-eyed, hands on her hips. "Because you did good work on that, and I _will_ speak to Mr. Lambert if I have to."

"I got an A," Tommy says, as grimly as if he'd failed. "So now Mr. Lambert has this stupid idea that I should go to college." He waves the stack of applications at her.

"Well, of course you should go to college!" A pinch forms between Mrs. Sonnenstein's eyebrows. "Are you telling me you haven't even _applied_? Oh, dear. Let's see what we have here." She fishes her glasses up by the chain she wears around her neck and takes the applications out of Tommy's hand. "Between Mr. Lambert and myself, I'm sure we can get you back on track. I just got in a new book on how to write a successful personal statement. That's where we'll start."

She bustles off to the reference section, beckoning Tommy to follow. Two hours later, he lurches out of the library, as dizzy as if he'd just been thrown free of a tornado, with the "How to Write A College Essay and Impress People" book tucked away in his backpack along with Mrs. Sonnenstein's hand-scrawled "Action Plan" listing everything he needs to do to finish up his applications, deadlines listed next to each item in demanding red magic marker. Meanwhile, he still has a vocab test to study for, and nobody is going to finish that calculus problem set for him.

He takes the side exit closest to the parking lot and runs into some straggling members of the baseball team headed back to the gym after practice, including Kent Clements, whose face is screwed up with manic energy, a douchebag on an adrenalin high. _Fucking fantastic._

"Ratliff!" Kent's voice booms out. "What's the hurry? You on your way to buy some new eyeliner? Or maybe you've got an appointment with the doc to get your dick turned into a pussy? Huh? 'Cause we all know how much you like feeling pretty."

Kent's friends guffaw with laughter like the morons they are. Mr. Hanson, the assistant baseball coach and driver's ed instructor, busily hauls gear back into the gym, perfectly within hearing range, but he acts like he doesn't notice a thing. Unlike Adam, most teachers are assholes.

"Fuck you," Tommy mutters, pushing past the throng of jackasses.

"Hey." Kent catches Tommy by the arm. "What did you say to me, you little bitch?"

"Fuck you!" Tommy shouts. "You hear me now?" Spit flies, catching Kent in the face, which is strangely satisfying.

"You stupid or what, bitch?" Kent tightens his grip on Tommy's arm, hurting. "Because now I'm going to have to—"

"Is there a problem here?" Tommy jerks his head at the coolly stern voice. Adam stands a few feet away, overloaded with stacks of books and papers, taking in the scene with a purse-mouthed expression.

"Um—" Kent stammers blankly.

"Because if there were a problem," Adam continues conversationally, "I'd need to report that to Mr. Lyrus, and he'd probably decide what? Suspension from the team, I'm guessing. Hey, when do those state playoffs start again? Next week, right?"

Kent's face pales.

"Hey, hey, that's right. Enough of this crap," Mr. Hanson suddenly pipes up, as if he hasn't been there the whole time, not doing shit. "Let's hit the showers, guys. Go, go, go!" He claps his hands loudly, and once the team members have all disappeared inside, he turns to Adam, a little sheepishly. "I was just going to—"

Adam nods. "I'm sure you were on top of it, Coach." There's no obvious sarcasm, but it's still perfectly clear he doesn't buy a word of the guy's bullshit.

Mr. Hanson clears his throat. "Yes. Well. Yes. I'd better be—" He hustles on into the gym, trying to look purposeful rather than like he's running away.

If Tommy hadn't already been totally won over by Adam, this would have done it, and yet, he still feels the need to point out, "I can take care of myself."

Adam nods. "But I can't get all this stuff to my car by myself, so—"

Tommy makes a big production of sighing and rolling his eyes as he takes a stack of books.

"My car's this way," Adam says sunnily.

They wrestle the stuff into the back of Adam's car, and then there's a pause afterward when it feels like somebody ought to say something. Tommy draws the toe of his sneaker through the loose gravel on the asphalt. "Thanks." It comes out small and maybe a little grudging.

Adam smiles, "No prob," and then adds, more seriously, "You okay?"

Tommy nods. "They're just stupid assholes."

"Pretty much." Adam laughs. "I'm sure I'm not supposed to say that to you."

Tommy smiles back, conspiratorially.

"Come on." Adam unlocks the car door. "I'll give you a ride."

They drive along, quiet and companionable, and Tommy thinks the whole thing back at school has been forgotten until Adam comes out with, "Is that why you don't want to go to college? Because you think it's going to be more of this high school bullshit? Because I promise you it's not."

There's a crack in the dashboard, from age and dry rot, and Tommy picks at it with his little finger, not looking at Adam. It's not even that he doesn't want to go to college, not really. Somehow he's just always assumed that he wouldn't, and he never particularly questioned why. He doesn't know how to explain that to Adam, who believes in possibilities more than anyone Tommy has ever known.

"Everything totally changed for me when I got to college," Adam offers when Tommy doesn't answer. "Seriously. All the stuff that used to make me unpopular in high school, being a drama geek and singing in chorus and believing that knowing about the past is actually pretty awesome, that was what made people want to hang out with me in college."

Tommy jerks his head around to stare at Adam. "You weren't popular in high school?"

Adam's laugh has a self-deprecating note to it. "Oh, honey, not even a little bit. I—well, let's just say I had _issues_."

"But—" It's like finding out the sun hasn't always been at the center of the solar system or something. Tommy doesn't know what to do with this information.

"College is a great place to figure out who you are and what you want. And also, you know, learn about the impact the spice trade had on the economy of medieval Europe. Not that I'm trying to push you." Adam's eyes crinkle at the corners when he grins. "Or, you know, not push you in a _bad way_, anyway." He pulls up in front of Tommy's house. "Just promise me you'll think about it, huh?"

Tommy nods, and they trade see-you-tomorrow's, and Tommy lingers there on the sidewalk, watching as Adam drives away. The house is quiet when he goes inside, his mom not home from work yet. He settles at the kitchen table, pulling the applications out of his backpack, along with the books Mrs. Sonnenstein picked out for him, staring at it all indecisively. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad just to apply? There's no big commitment in that, and Adam does tend to be right about things. Maybe Tommy should give himself the opportunity, whether he ends up taking it or not.

He's still mulling it over when his mom gets home. She drops the grocery bags she's carrying on the counter. "Hi, honey." She gives him a kiss on the forehead and peers over his shoulder. "Have you changed your mind?" Tommy can tell she's trying not to sound too excited, that reverse psychology thing she works on him, but the hopefulness seeps through despite her best efforts.

Tommy shrugs. "One of my teachers thinks I should apply."

"You're listening to a teacher?"

"Mom!" Tommy objects, even though he knows she's kidding.

"I'm assuming this is the same teacher who got you to take that research paper so seriously. I really should send him a fruit basket or something."

"_Mom_!" Tommy protests more loudly, because this time he's not a hundred percent sure she's joking.

He's relieved when she starts to laugh. "So what can I do to help further the send-Tommy-to-college cause?"

"Um—get out your checkbook? For the application fees?"

She gives him a one-armed hug. "It'll be the best money I've ever spent."

Making big, life-changing decisions is kind of exhausting, Tommy decides as he falls into bed that night. The good part, though, is now he gets to tell Adam!

The next morning, he hustles to Adam's classroom, sneakers making an enthusiastic squeak on the linoleum as he hurries along, only to find Adam's desk empty. He loiters around, impatiently, looking at the big glitter-decorated timeline of ancient Greece, the name of each period falling out of his head immediately after he's read it, his frustration mounting with every tick of the second hand on the clock. He's irritably contemplating the possibility that he might have to leave and come back later when Adam materializes in the doorway.

"Tommy." Adam's face lights up, which would be great except—

"Where have you been?" Tommy demands.

"Good morning to you too?" Adam's eyes sparkle with amusement. "Alisan—Miss Porter was giving me a preview of the spring musical. They're doing _Cabaret_. It's going to be awesome." He frowns at Tommy. "Hey, why aren't you in her music class?"

Tommy snorts. "Orchestra? Seriously? Nobody's who in a band, a _real_ band, would—"

"Al—_Miss Porter_'s in a band. They totally kill."

Tommy makes a dubious face.

Adam laughs. "Hey, if it weren't for Miss Porter, I wouldn't even be here. We've been friends forever, and she helped me get this teaching gig."

There's a sensation in Tommy's belly that feels the way he imagines being stabbed does. He desperately tries to ignore that it's probably jealousy, and he wants to say something rude about Miss Porter, except for how he doesn't really want to talk about her at all. "I've decided to apply to college," he blurts out, before Adam can start cataloguing all the ways that Miss Porter is secretly awesome.

The announcement has the desired effect. Adam's expression breaks open, brilliantly, eyes shining as he claps his hands together. "Oh my God, we have so much to do! You'll need recommendations from two other teachers besides me. And you really should start thinking about your personal statement."

"Mrs. Sonnenstein gave me this book, but—" Tommy's voice drops down to a mumble. "Personal statements are kinda hard."

"Hey." Adam's gaze centers on Tommy, warm and steadying, and Tommy breathes out, rescued. "You've got a lot to say. You just don't know it yet. We'll work on it together. It's going to be awesome, you'll see."

"I can stay after school?" Tommy ventures.

"Sure," Adam says and then shakes his head. "Actually, I can't today. The landlord is finally sending someone over to fix my bathroom sink. I've only been bugging him about it for _forever_, and if I'm not there—"

"I could come over, " Tommy quickly offers, grabbing opportunity with both hands. "I mean if you don't mind?"

"That works. As long as it's okay with your parents."

Tommy waves his hand. "I'm sure my mom won't mind. She's really excited I'm applying."

Adam gives him a big, sweet smile. "Me too. So—meet you in the parking lot after school?"

Tommy nods. The bell rings, and he starts away, but then turns back in the doorway. "Thanks."

Adam smiles softly. "Don't be late for homeroom. Mr. Lyrus has been on the warpath lately."

The rest of the day breezes past Tommy, _blah, blah derivatives_ and _something, something the power of symbolism in The Sound and the Fury_. Whatever. He stares into space, too distracted by the nervous flutter in his belly to pay attention to anything else. _I'm going to Adam's house, I'm going to be_ alone _with him in the actual place where he lives_. Tommy turns that thought over and over in his head, like a lucky penny.

It's only in sixth period that Tommy surfaces out of his daze, because _Adam_, and also they're playing Know Your History Vocabulary. Sonja Anania whips her head around to give him a pointed look of challenge, her blond hair flying, a vicious gleam in her eyes. Somehow they've become the least likely nemeses ever, more evidence of the Mr. Lambert Effect in action.

The bell rings, _finally_, what Tommy has been waiting for all day. Now that it's here, he hits an awkward patch, his sneakers squeak-squeak-squeaking as he makes his way up to Adam's desk. He pauses there, and his entire vocabulary including the twelve words he just got right to win the game go right out of his head.

"Um."

Thankfully, Adam doesn't seem to notice that he's turned into a wordless zombie. "You need to go to your locker before we head out?"

Tommy nods.

"I'm parked at the far end of the teacher's lot. See you in five minutes?"

_Stop being a stupid asshole_, Tommy lectures himself all the way to his locker and then the whole way out to Adam's car.

The good news is that it probably breaks whole laws of physics to stay uncomfortable around Adam for very long. By the time they're turning into Adam's condo complex, an uninspiring, dust-colored collection of buildings that seems just the kind of place a college-student-slash-substitute-teacher would live, Tommy is breathing almost normally. He definitely has enough presence of mind to give Adam shit over the ABBA CD he finds peeking out from beneath the floor mat in the passenger seat.

"They're a Swedish national treasure!" Adam protests, and Tommy's not even sure he's kidding.

"You're just, like, this total dork, aren't you?"

Adam gives him a big, scowly frown. "I thought you'd been paying attention in class!"

They both crack up, and they're still laughing as Tommy trails Adam into his apartment, which helps defuse the shock of _oh my God, I'm standing in Mr. Lambert's actual home_.

"Nice place," Tommy says, the corner of his mouth smirking upward. When his room looks like this, he gets yelled at.

Adam makes a wry face, dumping his keys onto the kitchen counter. "A good housekeeping role model I am not. So, you hungry?" He opens a cabinet and peers inside. "I'm sure I have something healthy I can feed you."

"Really?" Tommy says, dismayed that Adam might turn out to be a vegan who's really into wheat grass or something equally as horrifying.

Adam snorts. "_No_. Not really." He hauls a bag of Doritos out of the cabinet and pours them both tall glasses of Pepsi. They settle on the couch, Tommy's applications spread out on the coffee table. Every time Tommy leans forward to snag a handful of Doritos, his leg slides against Adam's, warm and intimate. Tommy finds he's suddenly fucking _starving_.

"So, how far have you gotten on your personal statement?"

"Um, does dreading it count as actually doing something?"

Adam laughs, and he's _right there_. Tommy feels the warm puff of Adam's breath on his arm. "I know it seems like writing this is going to suck, but it doesn't have to, I swear. Just think of it as—" He gestures with his hand, a little manic in his enthusiasm, the way he always is in class. "You're telling the story of you. So." His gaze settles on Tommy, bright blue and inquisitive, making heat ripple along Tommy's spine. "What should the world know about Tommy Joe Ratliff?"

Tommy frowns at the use of his middle name. "How—"

There's a quick flash of Adam's dimples, a totally unapologetic smile. "Permanent record."

"Nosy," Tommy mutters, although, God, there's nothing he wants more than for Adam to know things about him, to care enough to snoop.

"Story?" Adam prompts.

For a moment, Tommy considers embellishing some moment from the Life and Times of Tommy Joe Ratliff—or, hey, making up something entirely. Except no, that wouldn't work at all, because Adam's job is telling fact from fiction. Anyway, the thing that makes Adam _Adam_ is that Tommy can tell him the truth, even if it is almost embarrassingly unremarkable.

"So." He takes a big breath. "You know the other day when those jackasses on the baseball team were giving me a hard time? Well, it's kind of always been like that. I don't mean that I can't get along with people, because I totally can. I _do_. It's just that I always felt like I didn't fit, you know? Like everyone else had their things and their people that made everything make sense for them, and I… just didn't. Like I was missing something? But then, when I was eleven, my mom started going out with this guy, Ben. Who was kind of a jerk, actually."

Adam presses his mouth into a thin, tense line, like he's imagining how he can track down this Ben guy and teach _him_ a thing or two.

Tommy shakes his head. "No, no, it's not that kind of story—he wasn't a perv or anything. He wasn't even mean. He just didn't like kids. Anyway, my mom had him watch me sometimes in the afternoons before she got home." He makes a face, because that's still insulting all these years later. "Ben would bring this beat-up old acoustic guitar with him, and he'd play the same thin little riffs over and over, while I was trying to watch _X-Men_, and it was so fucking boring, and I was all, why do people think guitars are cool anyway?"

Adam grins, and Tommy nods. _Right? What do eleven-year-olds know?_

"So, one night my mom had to work late, and then she got stuck in traffic, and Ben had this gig, and he took me with him, making me promise to stay backstage and not be a pain in the ass. I was all _whatever_, because it was Ben, and I wasn't going to let him know that I was actually kind of excited about it. The band went out on stage and started to play, and it was those same chords, but on an electric guitar, and fuck, it was Metallica, you know?"

Adam nods, as if this makes all the sense in the world, confirming Tommy's opinion that Adam is the most awesome person in the world.

"There was Ben, this big, stupid jerk, and he was making this _sound_ that I could feel in my gut, this harmony that made everything make sense. And I knew, I knew right then. I _had_ to do that. Had to make music. It was the only thing I was ever going to want. So I started bugging my mom for a guitar, which she thought was cute, like I was trying to take after Ben or something." Tommy sticks a finger in his mouth and makes a gagging sound. "After they broke up and I was still dead set on a guitar, that's when she started to take me seriously, and I got one for my next birthday. I taught myself chords and how to read music, and I've played in bands ever since, no matter how shitty, because, because _that's_ where I fit. That's what I'd been missing."

Adam is staring at him, soft-eyed and proud. "Do you have any idea how amazing you are?"

His arm stretches along the back of the sofa, making Tommy feel like the whole world is just this one piece of furniture and the two of them. "How did you get started in music?" he asks, his voice quiet, like they're trading secrets.

"It's not nearly as good a story."

Tommy elbows him. "Come on. Spill it."

"Soccer," Adam says mysteriously and breaks into a smile at Tommy's puzzled look. "If I hadn't hated it so much, I wouldn't have talked my parents into letting me join drama club instead, where I got to sing in my first musical, which was this total revelation. No one's been able to shut me up since."

"No one would _want_ to shut you up. Your voice—"

"Oh, hey." Adam sits up straighter. "I've got an idea." He bolts down the hall, zigzagging past piles of books and discarded clothes. When he returns, he has a guitar in hand.

"I didn't know you—"

"Oh, yeah. No. I don't. Okay, I tried. Well, sort of." Adam wrinkles his nose. "I really don't like doing things I'm not good at. Anyway." He hands the guitar over to Tommy. "Now there's someone here who actually knows what to do with it."

Adam settles onto the sofa again and fixes an expectant look on Tommy.

"Um—"

The expression on Adam's face says: This is _so_ not up for negotiation, so just quit stalling already.

Tommy lets out his breath. "Okay. Fine."

He tunes the guitar, and tunes it, and tunes it.

"Fuck, what have you _done_ to this poor thing?" Tommy asks, horrified.

Adam smirks, eyes a bright, wicked blue. "Not telling."

Tommy snickers, and it feels just like it does when he's hanging out with his friends, only it's _Adam_.

"I'm waiting," Adam reminds him.

Tommy ducks his head, nervously fingering the strings. It's instinct more than choice, launching into the first song he ever learned to play, even though _Stairway to Heaven_ is the first song _everyone_ who's ever picked up a guitar learns, and some people thinks it's trite just because everyone likes it so much, but those people are stupid fuckers, and Adam's so totally not.

As if to prove the point, a few bars in Adam starts to hum, under his breath at first, so Tommy feels it more than hears it, and then louder, and then Adam starts to sing. Tommy can't think of too many moments in his life that have given him an honest-to-God shiver down his spine, but this, right here, this is one of them, Adam so close, and his voice so big and gorgeous and just… necessary somehow.

The only part that's not perfect is that it ends; eight minutes and three seconds is nowhere near long enough. This searing rush of _might never get to do this again_ battles it out in the pit of Tommy's stomach with _at least I got to do it all_.

Adam smiles, blissed out from just that little bit of Zeppelin, and if Tommy didn't already like Adam more than just about any other person on earth, this would definitely be their beginning-of-a-beautiful-friendship moment.

"So, um." Tommy shifts on the sofa, balancing the guitar indecisively on his lap, halfway between putting it down and picking it back up. Not that he doesn't know which he'd preferred, but blah, blah, blah, his future and shit.

"We should probably get back to your college applications, huh?" Adam bites his lip, sounding almost as sorry as Tommy feels.

Tommy nods and carefully rests the guitar against a nearby chair. He bends his head over the Fresno State form, squinting at the list of questions he's supposed to answer.

After a moment, Adam says, "You are fucking awesome, by the way, and, for the record, that thing where I said you can do anything you want? I totally called that. Also, later, after the application stuff, I'm thinking we should try some Queen, because, well… _Queen_."

Tommy smiles down at the paper. He's so happy he doesn't even complain that question #4, _Describe the mission you are accomplishing on Earth_, is total fucking bullshit.

They sprint the whole way getting Tommy's applications ready in time for the deadlines—at least, if sprinting were kind of chaotic and frantic and involved killing about a _zillion_ trees in the pursuit of the perfect personal statement. Adam never mentions exactly what underhanded tactics he used to get Ms. Riley, Tommy's English teacher, and Mr. Bradley, who Tommy had for biology two years ago, to cough up sterling recommendations practically overnight. Even when Tommy specifically asks, Adam refuses to come clean, although there's an amused glint in his eye that leads Tommy to believe that Adam has picked up some blackmail-worthy gossip in the teacher's lounge that he's not sharing. Mrs. Sonnenstein enthusiastically volunteers her own recommendation, praising Tommy's dedication to research. Mr. Lyrus grudgingly pens a note declaring that Tommy's attendance has been adequate and his behavior has never required disciplinary action.

"God, that was _exhausting_," Adam declares in a frazzled voice, as they hand over Tommy's last application in its overnight envelope to the clerk at the post office.

Tommy gives him a look.

Which Adam waves off. "Yeah, okay, you're probably a little tired too."

They pile back into Adam's car. This has become a habit, spending their afternoons together, Adam driving Tommy home at the end of it, easy and familiar, like that's just the way it should be. Adam doesn't seem to think anything about it, and Tommy feels as if he's hit the fucking Lotto every time he has Adam all to himself, although sometimes he does have to wonder what Mr. Lyrus would make of the situation if he knew. He suspects a teacher spending this much time with a student breaks a few school policies, not that he's planning on bringing up the subject with Adam anytime soon.

"So, we should celebrate," Adam says, with a crinkled-eyed, God-I'm-proud smile.

"Beer?"

"Starbucks," Adam says firmly, doing his best impression of an authority figure.

Tommy grins at him, a little helplessly, because, because…no one else has ever made Tommy this happy without even trying.

The muffled riff of Acid Bath spills out of Adam's pocket, and he fishes it out, answering one-handed. "Hey, Monte—oh, shit, is he—are you sure? Oh, hell, I don't know. Cancel it, I guess. You mean—" His gaze slides over to Tommy and lingers there, just for a moment, but it's long enough for Tommy to feel it on his skin like a touch. "No, I don't think—Yes, I get that it's a big damned deal. But this isn't—Fine. I'll think about it." He tosses the phone into the cup holder with all the loose change and abandoned tubes of lip gloss.

"Something wrong?" Tommy asks, concerned.

Adam shakes his head, staring straight ahead, the traffic suddenly really important to him. Every now and then, though, Tommy feels his gaze again, like a spotlight.

"What?" he finally demands.

Adam bites his lip, which could be restraint or hope or a combination of both. "I really shouldn't."

"Okay, now you _have_ to tell me."

Adam lets out his breath. "Our bassist has appendicitis."

"Oh, that sucks."

"Yeah, and even suckier? We have this big gig coming up at this club in Venice Beach on Friday. There's supposed to be a rep from Rescue Records in the audience, and Lee's not getting out of the hospital until next Tuesday, and—we really need somebody to help us out?" Adam looks almost apologetic about it.

Tommy manages to wait until the next red light to give his answer, a lunging hug, arms going in a flail around Adam's neck, remembering only belatedly not to cut off Adam's oxygen supply with his enthusiasm.

"God," Adam groans. "This probably goes against about a million school policies. I so fail at the appropriate thing." Then it occurs to him to ask, "Wait. You do play the bass, right?"

Tommy laughs and slides back into the passenger seat as the light turns green. "Whatever. I can learn."

Adam makes wide, desperate eyes at him, and Tommy laughs again, the sound bubbling up from somewhere in the vicinity of his toes, more fucking happy than he's ever been in his life.

 

There's only time for one hurried practice before the gig on Friday. Adam picks Tommy up after dinner, flashing a smile as Tommy slides into the passenger seat, before remembering to play the responsible adult. "Your mom is cool with this?"

Tommy nods, not that he exactly went into all the details, just that he had a gig. His mom wouldn't object to his playing in a band with one of his teachers, especially Mr. Lambert, who she thinks walks on water for getting Tommy to apply to college. It's just that this belongs to Tommy, his chance to be part of Adam's world, and he doesn't want to share that with anyone. He hasn't even mentioned it to Mia.

The band rehearses in an old garage that looks like it's been abandoned for years and could probably use some attention from the EPA. Ancient grime stains the cracked concrete floor. The stink of grease and chemicals lingers in the air. Tommy loves it instantly.

"Monte's cousin owns the place and lets us use it," Adam explains as they head inside.

The rest of the band is already there, warming up.

"Everybody, this is Tommy," Adam says and reels off their names.

Adam's bandmates eye Tommy curiously. Longineu starts to say, "Hey, he looks just like…" before Cam cuts him off with an elbow to the side. Adam moves a step closer to Tommy, big and hovering, flashing a look, _Shut up_ as clearly as if he'd actually said the words. Tommy has no idea what that's about.

"All I'm saying is, he looks a lot like—"

"Can we just do this?" Adam interrupts.

Monte beckons to Tommy. "You can put your stuff down over here. I brought Lee's bass for you to use, and we can go over the set list."

The good news is that they play a lot of covers, all of which Tommy already knows, and their original songs have pretty simple bass lines. He glances around for Adam, because, well, _because_. Adam watches him with a soft little smile, and Tommy smiles back, tentatively, feeling kind of shy in front of Adam's band.

"Yeah. Okay. That right there? That's what I'm talking about," Longineu says.

Adam cuffs him lightly on the back of the head. "Come on. Let's get this done. It's a school night."

Tommy's a little keyed up through the first song—who can blame him really, since he's playing for _Adam_, for that glorious voice—but soon enough he remembers: _Fuck, I know how to do this_. He settles in, shoulders relaxing, fingers moving easily on the strings. Monte nods approvingly. Adam sings his ass off, a low growl in the back of his throat on "Whole Lotta Love," voice rising big and bright during "I Want To Break Free." Tommy hangs back, watching from beneath his bangs, drinking Adam up with greedy eyes, every breath, every move, every everything.

His whole body buzzes with adrenaline by the time they've run through the set list twice. Adam checks his watch, lips pursed, apparently concerned about the time, and Tommy wants to tell him that it doesn't matter. He's not going to be able to sleep tonight. He may not sleep for the rest of his life.

"Just give me a minute, okay, Tommy?" Adam says. "I need to go over some things with Monte."

Tommy packs up Lee's bass, and then he's happy to stand off to the side and enjoy the view. He's careful at school, sneaking glances only when he feels sure he won't get caught, but now he's free to stare, at Adam's long legs and the dark fall of hair into his eyes and the way his jeans cling to the curve of his ass. Tommy cheeks go hot at that last part. He's never really thought about Adam's body, not in any explicit detail anyway, and now that he's started, he's pretty sure he's totally fucked, because suddenly there's this insistent, hungry ache in the pit of his stomach, and he doesn't want to think about anything _but_ Adam's body, long and lean, freckles and _skin_. Shit.

He startles so hard when Longineu claps him on the back that he feels like a fucking idiot. Longineu just shakes his head. "Dude—" There's a note in his voice that reminds Tommy strangely enough of his mother when she's trying to tell him something for his own good. All Longineu says, though, is, "See you tomorrow night."

Monte says something to Adam that makes him scowl, and Tommy can't really hear, but he thinks it sounds like, "I hope you know what you're doing."

When Adam turns to Tommy, his expression softens, his mouth curves up, with familiar warmth, and Tommy's answering smile comes automatically. Adam crooks his finger, _time to go_, but Tommy has all these thoughts about Adam's _body_ rattling around in his head, so Adam beckoning to him feels like being caught in a lightning storm. Tommy follows Adam out to the car, a little wobbly and so aware it hurts.

"Um," he waits until they're on the road to ask, "was that okay?"

He feels sure of the answer—music is the one thing he's genuinely confident about, not just the put-on bravado he used to practice in front of the mirror when he was younger and dorkier—but he wants, _needs_ to hear it from Adam. In the two months since Adam first stepped foot into sixth period, Tommy has learned his smiles, all of them, the vast arsenal: the encouraging twinkle, the all-out beam of approval, the forced half-smile half-grimace of patience when someone's being a dick, the sly grin when Adam's tricking them into taking an interest in history despite themselves. But the smile he gives Tommy now is the best one of all, the way it starts in his eyes, bright and pleased, and his mouth goes wide and generous, and there's no other meaning to it than that Adam is just really fucking happy.

"So much better than okay." Adam slides his hand along the back of Tommy's neck, affectionate and reassuring. Long fingers on bare skin, and Tommy will feel the shiver of that touch, he imagines, for the rest of his life.

 

Tommy parts ways with gravity, and doesn't come back down the entire twenty-four hours leading up to the gig. The day of, he laughs loudly enough to make Adam grin at the mini van they pile into for the ride out to Venice Beach, borrowed from Longineu's sister, with toys and a sippy cup that belong to her kids rolling around under their feet. He barely notices that the club looks like it's been picked up by a strong wind and slammed back down without all its pieces in the right places. If the inside smells like a bizarre combination of old fish and clove cigarettes, he really can't care.

They set up their gear and do sound check, but they're not supposed to take the stage for another hour. They gravitate to the bar, clustering together at one end. Adam leans on a stool, with Tommy wedged in next to him, close enough to feel the heat coming off Adam, which _oh shit_ makes him think about _Adam's body_, about the long line of his leather-covered thigh which Tommy could brush with his leg if he turned a little tiny bit… He tries to swallow, but there's nothing there, no spit left in his mouth. He catches the bartender's eye. Adam's mouth pulls into a thin line when Tommy orders a beer.

The first quick sip doesn't make his mouth feel any less dry. Neither does the second, longer gulp.

"Hey." Adam leans in, frowning. He was already so close, and now they're mere molecules apart. "You okay?" His palm, broad and warm, settles on Tommy's back and begins a slow up-and-down. Tommy somehow manages to nod. He's okay, sure, if by okay Adam means so turned on he can barely breathe.

"'Cause you're going to be great. You know that, right?" Adam regards him fondly, and Tommy leans in a little closer, irresistibly drawn. "Also." His gaze meets Tommy's, sincere, almost solemn. "It really means a lot that you're here, that you would do this for us."

Tommy wants to correct him, wants to say that he's there for _him_, but he only manages, "Adam," urgently enough that Adam gives him a second, sharper look and curls his hand around Tommy's shoulder. Tommy's heart does a frantic lurch against his ribs, because there's no dividing line left between his space and Adam's, and without lines, anything might be possible.

Unfortunately, the stage manager picks that moment to boom out, "We're ready for you guys now."

Tommy startles away from Adam so suddenly he knocks back into Monte, who steadies him with a hand to the arm. "You okay there, kid?" Tommy doesn't answer, because yes, no, who knows, and he can't help feeling like he just did something wrong letting his thoughts go crazy like that.

He follows the rest of the guys up to the stage with his head down. Before he can start up the steps, Adam catches his arm. Tommy doesn't have any choice but to look at him, even though just the thought of seeing how he's fucked up reflected in Adam's eyes makes him want to curl in on himself. There's no disapproval in Adam's expression, though, just the usual attentiveness and maybe a hint of concern.

"It's okay to be nervous, you know that, right?" Adam's palm makes a circle of warmth on Tommy's shoulder.

In other circumstances Tommy would be pissed to have Adam, of all people, treating him like a stupid kid who might crap his pants with stage fright, but he just nods, almost weak with relief that Adam doesn't see anything but an imaginary case of the jitters.

There's a good-sized crowd, Friday night and all that. In the mosh pit, girls crowd as close to the stage as they can get. Tables fill the rest of the space, and at one of them sits the Rescue Records rep; at least he's supposed to be here. Tommy can't make out anything past the lights, and it wouldn't matter if he could. He hasn't fucked up anything between him and Adam. Everything else feels ridiculously easy.

"Hey, thanks for coming out tonight," Adam purrs into the microphone, voice lower than usual, totally fucking sexy. "I hope you're looking for a good time, because that's why we're here." The crowd answers with a loud whoop, a buzz of energy starting to come alive in the room. Adam laughs. "I like you already."

They break into the first song, one of the original ones, which ratchets up the crowd's enthusiasm another notch. Adam sends all that energy right back at them, voice sliding down to gravel, hips working, head thrown back. The familiar blissed-out feeling comes over Tommy, the way it always does on stage, like he really understands his place in the world now that he has an instrument in his hands. As they head into the second number, the ground feels almost surreally solid beneath his feet. He gives himself over the music, to the thundering rhythm of Longineu's drumming, and the electric bright riff from Monte's guitar, and Adam's rich, gorgeous voice that saturates everything with its day-glo warmth.

Adam catches Tommy's eye and winks, and Tommy smiles back, no blush, because in that moment, they aren't teacher and the student who has an inconvenient crush on him. They're bandmates with nothing but an even playing field between them.

The set comes to an end all too soon, and the crowd practically threatens a riot to get one encore and then another. When they finally leave the stage, it's because they've literally run out of songs. Sweat trickles down Tommy's back, and his shirt sticks to his skin. He's buzzing with adrenaline. Backstage is little more than a storeroom, but at least there are towels and bottles of water. Monte high-fives Tommy, and LP smiles, and Adam catches Tommy up in his arms and gives him a hug so fierce and all-encompassing it makes every other hug Tommy has ever gotten in his whole life seem like imposters. When Adam pulls back, his face is shining, and his eyes are soft, and he looks so happy that Tommy wants to…

"Why, yes, you can offer me some of that water considering I've driven practically to the ends of the earth for your show. We'll negotiate how many drinks you owe me later." Tommy turns at the sound of an unfamiliar voice and finds a guy, slight and pretty, regarding Adam with a put-upon expression that might or might not be teasing. Tommy really can't tell.

"Brad." Adam's mouth curves up, and, so, yeah, teasing apparently.

Brad breaks into a smile, stepping forward. "You were wonderful, darling, as always." Tommy can guess what's coming, but it's still a shock when it happens, Brad's hand touching Adam's cheek, Brad's mouth on Adam's. The kiss is too familiar to be the first and kind of possessive, like the stamp in the books at the library, _property of_.

"You have a new boy," Brad says when he finally pulls back, a look over his shoulder at Tommy.

"Tommy Ratliff. Brad Bell." Adam does the introductions using what Tommy thinks of as his parent-teacher-conference voice, and he hates Brad for making that happen, and then he kind of hates Adam a little too when he adds, "Tommy's in my history class."

Of course, there's no reason why Adam shouldn't mention that Tommy's still in high school, and yet the fact that he does feels like a betrayal, even more so when Brad's gaze flickers over Tommy, casually discounting him as any kind of competition.

"I'm going to—" Tommy nods toward the door, not that he really wants to go back out to the bar. He's just not sure if Adam wants him around right now, which sucks more than just about anything.

The bartender doesn't give him a second look when he orders a Heineken—he's with the band, apparently that's even better than a fake ID. Tommy fishes a crumpled ten out of his pocket, all the cash he has on him, not nearly enough to get him drunk, which also sucks. He slouches against the bar and thinks about how he should nurse his beer, because who knows how long this night is going to stretch on. He gulps it down anyway, and the fizzy burn feels strangely satisfying when it hits the back of his throat.

The funny thing is—irony-funny, not haha—Tommy never actually stopped to consider whether Adam might like guys or not, not even once. Adam was so unattainable, for so many reasons, that the gay-or-not thing really seemed like the least of Tommy's problems. Tonight, though, everything changed, that moment on stage when the possibilities shifted, and then finding out that Adam kisses guys and maybe… only not, because _Brad_.

Tommy takes a hit off his beer, and gets nothing, and squints at the bottle, like he can't imagine how it became empty.

"Get you another of those?"

Tommy starts to shake his head, and then realizes it's not the bartender asking.

The guy next to him smiles. "My treat."

"Um." Nobody's ever offered to buy Tommy a drink before, and he's not sure—

But the guy's already signaling the bartender, who sits another Heineken down. "My name is Gary, by the way."

"Tommy."

Gary offers his hand, and they shake. Tommy can't tell how old Gary is, although older than Tommy for sure, with the grizzled, hard-living, seen-everything vibe that could mean he's twenty-five or forty.

"So, you looked good up there on stage tonight." Gary gives Tommy a slow, sideways smile.

Tommy ducks his head, and it's stupid, he knows, to be self-conscious after the fact, but suddenly he is. "Um, yeah. The band is great. Adam—" He stops himself, just in time, before he can launch into a long, way-too-revealing ramble about how Adam is awesome in every possible way. "I'm not—their bassist is sick. I'm just filling in."

"You're a lot more than that. I know this industry. I see big things for you."

No one but Adam has ever sounded that certain about Tommy's future, and there's no way not to be intrigued by that.

"You really think so?" Tommy takes another sip of his beer, casually, trying not to look like the answer is important to him.

Gary nods in a way that leaves no room for doubt. "Oh, absolutely. You know who you remind me of a little bit? The way you play and stuff. Martin Gore."

Tommy can only blink. "Really?"

"You play guitar, am I right?"

Tommy nods. "Just tonight they—"

"Needed a bassist. I had a feeling. That you were multi-talented." He smiles, and it's like he really _sees_ Tommy, not quite the way—but _Brad_, and Tommy really needs to stop thinking about Adam.

"So, you like Depeche Mode?"

Gary nods. "Hell, yeah. I traveled with them on their Singles Tour, roadie work. They're a cool bunch of guys."

"Wow," Tommy says softly. "Really?"

Gary launches into tales of life on the road: epic prank wars and even more epic amounts of pussy and non-stop partying that would have landed a less dedicated delinquent in the emergency room or possibly an early grave. He orders another round of beers, and the stories start to get even more outrageous. Tommy's not sure how much he believes, but if there's any truth in any of it, that still makes Gary's life about a billion times more awesome than anything Tommy's done, stuck in sleepy-ass Burbank, where a trip to the mall is about as exciting as it gets.

"Hey, is it way too hot in here or what?" Gary pulls his T-shirt away from his chest. "You want to get some air?"

"Oh, um—"

"Just right out back." Gary waves his hand in the direction of the exit sign. "I'll tell you about the time Martin was working on that Leonard Cohen cover."

Tommy sweeps his head around, searching the crowd. There's a part of him that's been hoping—but no, no sign of Adam, who is probably still back stage with _Brad_.

"Sure, let's get some air."

He reaches for his beer, but Gary puts a hand on his arm. "Leave it." He smiles. "I'll buy you another one after."

Outside there's an alley, gravel and broken glass underfoot, the smell of engine grease and rotted food, one feeble streetlamp throwing off a puddle of pale orange light.

"So, the Leonard Cohen cover, were you in the studio when—"

The rest of the sentence gets lost in a startled yelp as Gary grabs Tommy, arm sliding around his waist, hauling him in. He crushes his lips against Tommy's, hard and demanding, and his mouth tastes sour, like it's been a long time since he brushed his teeth that morning.

Tommy jerks back. "What—"

"You are so fucking pretty, you know that?" He drags his thumb along Tommy's cheek, and the words come out slurred. Not because he's drunk.

Fear hits Tommy's system hard, a chemical burn in his blood, but he tries to play it cool. "Hey, I think I should—my band is probably—how about that beer now?"

Gary stares at him blankly, as if he doesn't speak that language, and then his expression completely rearranges, all the casual friendliness gone. "What the fuck? Are you some fucking cocktease?"

"No! I just—I didn't know—" Tommy tries to move toward the door, but Gary yanks him back by his hair.

"I didn't spend twelve bucks on Heinekens to get nothing out of this."

He pushes his mouth onto Tommy's, a clash of teeth, and forces their bodies together. Tommy tastes blood, and he can feel Gary's hard-on pressed insistently against his hip. Tommy makes urgent _let me the fuck go_ noises and tries to squirm his way free, but Gary has a good two inches on him, and he's a hell of a lot stronger.

"Oh, _fuck_ no. Get your hands off him." The voice snaps through the air, familiar and more pissed off than Tommy's ever heard him, and _thank god, thank God_.

"What the fuck?" Gary is surprised enough that his grip goes slack.

Tommy wrenches away, and then Adam is right there, big and looming and protective, sliding his arm around Tommy's waist, tucking Tommy close along his side.

"Get the fuck out of here, you fucking faggot," Gary barks at Adam.

"I'd point out the irony here," Adam says coolly, "but somehow I think it would be a waste of time."

"This isn't any of your fucking business."

"Whose business is it? The police? Because I have my phone, I can—" Adam makes a show of reaching into his pocket.

Gary mutters, "Oh, fuck," and gets out of there so fast he practically leaves burn marks on the pavement.

"Adam—"

"What the hell, Tommy?" Adam says, pale-faced and still pissed off. "You seriously don't know better than to go off alone with a stranger, some old perv who just wants in your pants?"

Adam's never been angry at him before, and the fact that he's angry _now_ makes Tommy's eyes go prickly and hot, something Gary hadn't managed even with his creepy pawing. Tommy is suddenly furious and wants to say something awful back, like a slap to the face, just the way Adam has made him feel.

Only he doesn't get the chance, because Adam gathers Tommy up in his arms and hugs the hell out of him, murmuring, "Oh honey," into his hair, and, "Sorry, sorry, not your fault, shouldn't have left you alone." Adam's hands move over Tommy's back, along his arms, up to cup the side of his face, gently, tentatively, as if checking for damage. "Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

"'m okay," Tommy says, voice muffled against Adam's shoulder. He hangs on tight, because, like a lot of things, Gary is scarier in retrospect, and Tommy just fits so well tucked into Adam's arms.

Adam doesn't seem any more eager to let Tommy go, stroking a hand over his hair and down his back, letting Tommy rest his head on his shoulder as long as he wants.

"I just—" Tommy fumbles, because he feels stupid about the whole thing, and he wants to explain. "We were talking about bands and—it wasn't—I didn't know he'd want to—no guy ever has—" He's just the weird kid in the back of the class, practically invisible most of the time, and he wasn't ready for that to change so suddenly.

"Oh, _honey_. You're _gorgeous_. Of course, guys are going to notice—"

Adam stops, flustered, staring at Tommy almost helplessly, eyes on Tommy's _mouth_, as if he wants—and he did just call Tommy "gorgeous." Tommy's breath catches, and he stares back. Adam leans in, and Tommy waits for something really good to happen.

It doesn't.

The leaning in isn't for a kiss, but a long, serious look in the eye. "You were great tonight, and thank you, but I really should take you home now."

Adam borrows a car from one of his friend's, since the rest of the band isn't ready to go yet. Tommy feels like a little kid being sent to bed before the party really starts as he waves goodbye to Monte and Longineu and Cam and follows Adam grudgingly out to the parking lot. Adam's quiet once they get on the road, which isn't like him, and Tommy stares out the window, feeling like he's strangling on the silence, until he just can't take it anymore.

"That guy, Brad, is he your boyfriend?" Tommy winces at how pointed the words sound in the stillness.

"My ex," Adam says, without hedging, without asking Tommy not to say anything about it at school.

Tommy's not sure he'd be that cool if their situations were reversed, and it's another thing to add into the "Why Adam is Awesome" column.

"Is that—going to be a problem?" Adam asks, carefully, and when Tommy looks over, startled, there's a stiffness to Adam's shoulders that Tommy's never seen before.

"No?" Which, seriously, is the biggest understatement ever, since Brad being history makes Tommy feel so relieved he doesn't even hate the guy anymore. Or at least not as much as he did before.

"I just thought maybe—you disappeared pretty quickly when he showed up."

"I thought maybe you wanted to be alone?" Tommy says more quietly, "He kissed you."

"He does that," Adam says matter-of-factly.

A truly terrible possibility occurs to Tommy. "Does that mean—are you getting back together?"

Adam goes quiet, and maybe that was just way too personal a thing to ask, and _fuck, fuck_, but then Adam says, "We—some people are just going to be a part of your life forever, even after you've figured out that trying to have a life together makes you both miserable. You know?"

Tommy nods, although it's a lie. He doesn't know. Can't even imagine. When he and the one real girlfriend he's ever had, Tracy Fisher, broke up at the beginning of eleventh grade, Burbank High School suddenly didn't seem big enough for both of them.

Adam takes the exit off the freeway, and Tommy feels the time, like sand through his fingers. There's something he wants to say, but he's not sure he should, and he doesn't know how. He frets away the minutes, and when they turn onto his street he panics, just throwing it out there, kind of incoherently. "Tonight—with that guy, it wasn't—I didn't not want to because he was a guy. It was just—"

Adam stops the car in front of Tommy's house. "Because he was an asshole?"

He smiles wryly, and Tommy laughs, and suddenly it's all okay.

"So, see you Monday?" If anyone had told Tommy two months ago that he'd be rooting for weekends to _pass_, he'd have thought they were crazy or drunk off their ass.

The porch light's on, but Tommy's mom has gone to bed, a gesture that means _I love you, and I trust you_. Tommy brushes his teeth and strips off his clothes and flops onto his bed. There's a buzz all along his skin, and his brain keeps going over everything that happened tonight in an endless loop. He stares up at the ceiling, at the water stain that his mom is always sighing over and saying they need to get fixed, profoundly awake.

He doesn't mean to think about Gary, doesn't _want_ to, but that's all the experience he has with guys, how their bodies feel when they're turned on and pressed against his. The picture of Brad with Adam plays in his head too, hardly more welcome, but that's what Adam looks like when he's kissing, and Tommy needs to know. He closes his eyes, and rearranges the pieces in his head until Adam has that softly surprised look on his face because _Tommy_ is kissing him. Adam's warm hug turns into Adam's hard-on hot and urgent against Tommy's hip and Adam's hands moving possessively over him, and instead of cold panic he feels this overwhelming desire to fall into Adam and stay there forever.

Tommy is panting by the time he's finished, his back sweaty against the sheets, belly wet and sticky, hand still loosely curled around his cock. He falls asleep with the muzzy thought that maybe he really shouldn't beat off to thoughts of his teacher. But then, it wasn't Mr. Lambert who told Tommy he was gorgeous, who looked like he wanted to kiss him.

It was Adam.

For days afterward, it's hard to think about anything but Adam. Tommy walks around in a daze, aching in this vaguely unsettling way, as if he's made of nothing but want. He literally doesn't see Alena Shansky until he plows headlong into her as he's headed for English class.

"Hey!" She scowls at him.

"Um, sorry." He plasters on a smile and tries to remember how to make small talk. "So, uh, how's it going?"

She rolls her eyes. "Way too little, way too late."

Tommy's left open-mouthed and speechless as she stomps off.

"I think that's her way of telling you she found another date to the prom." Tommy startles at Mia's voice, and she giggles. "Why so jumpy, lollipop? You been doing something you shouldn't? Besides blowing me off when we're supposed to hang out together, obviously, and by the way, we're going to need to discuss how you can make that up to me."

"It wasn't—I haven't been—" Tommy feels himself turning red. Fuck, he's been thinking about Adam's mouth all morning; why does he have to pick now to blush?

Mia claps her hands together, letting out a high-pitched squeal. "Oh my God, you _have_ been up to something. I thought you were just being all emo and sulky and shit."

Guilt stings Tommy, because he always invites Mia to his shows, and he didn't this time, not only because that might make things weird for Adam, but mostly because Tommy wanted Adam all to himself that night, with no reminders of Burbank High, not even his best friend.

Mia's voice dips lower, "Is it something dirty?"

"No!" At least _not yet_.

Mia's eyes go wider. "Illegal?"

"Mia!"

"Not that this isn't fascinating, but could I have a word?" Sonja Anania materializes of nowhere, giving Tommy an impatient look, as if to say _people who got in early decision to Stanford don't have all day_.

"What—"

"Yeah. No. Not here." Sonja drags Tommy off to a spot beneath the stairway where couples go to flout Mr. Lyrus's no-PDAs-in-the-hall rule.

Mia watches with a crooked smile, giving Tommy a little wave, no help at all.

"What?" Tommy demands when Sonja finally unhands him, and immediately regrets his tone. She has this unnervingly determined expression, and for one paranoid moment, he wonders if she's gone crazy and is going to shiv him between the ribs with a super-sharp No. 2 pencil, so she can have Adam all to herself.

Instead, she says, business-like, "So, as you know, prom is coming up, lame as that may be."

"Yeah?" Tommy stares at her in confusion.

"You realize I don't like you, right?" Tommy makes a face, and Sonja continues, matter-of-factly, "And of course, you don't like me either. But we do have one thing in common, and he's going to be one of the faculty chaperones at the prom. So are you in or out?"

Tommy's mouth bobs open, although no actual sound comes out of it. It is in fact possible to be shocked into silence, he discovers.

"I'm going to take that as a yes." When Tommy still doesn't answer, Sonja narrows her eyes and goes for the jugular. "Mr. Lambert in a suit. Maybe even a tux."

He throws up his hands. "Okay, okay!"

"Good," she says with satisfaction. "And just so we're clear, once we get to prom it's all about Mr. Lambert. I don't actually want to spend time with you or anything."

"I don't want to spend time with you either!"

Sonja nods. "Good. I'm glad we understand each other." She starts off, but then turns back. "Oh, and I'll email you instructions about what you're wearing after I've picked out my dress. Your cummerbund needs to match, and don't even think about wearing sneakers or combat boots or whatever god-awful thing you think is edgy. The eyeliner is okay, but if you look prettier than I do I will cut you, just for the record." She smiles sweetly. "Okay?"

"Um."

She doesn't bother to wait for an answer.

Tommy stumbles back out into the hall, dazed, and Mia waits, practically vibrating with curiosity. She takes one look at him and laughs loudly. "Oh, _somebody_ just got commandeered for the prom."

The last weeks of May feel like the air is slowly being let out of a tire. Even the teachers seem to realize any efforts to get anyone to concentrate on anything remotely serious are purely futile. In English, they trade celebrity gossip in the guise of a discussion about current events. Mr. Bryant shows filmstrip after filmstrip, every day, in lieu of teaching physics. They play desultory rounds of volleyball in gym, and half the time nobody bothers to keep score. Adam is the only one who makes any attempt to get them to learn something; the games in his class are at least educational.

Today, Adam breaks them into teams, and assigns them an event from history, and gives them the task of putting together a playlist that tells the story. One member of each group will put together the actual mix—Tommy volunteers—and they'll spend the rest of the week listening and discussing them in class. Tommy's team gets _The French Revolution_, and he trades a smile with Adam, snatches of Metallica going through his head.

Every afternoon, Tommy hurries home, not even lingering to hang out with Adam, as much as he might like to, a collision of dread and anticipation in the pit of his stomach, and then sinking disappointment when there's still no mail from a college admissions office waiting for him.

Until today when he finds a cream-colored envelope mixed in with the utility bills and his mother's J. Jill catalog. It's from Fresno State, his first choice, because their music department doesn't seem completely lame. He knows from talk around school that fat envelopes are good, and his couldn't be skinnier, no more than a single sheet of paper. He tears into it mechanically, stomach rebelling as he imagines having to tell Adam that he didn't get in. God. Maybe he won't get in anywhere. Concern about his future might be a fairly new development, but he feels the weight of it pressing down on him.

He can't make sense of _Congratulations, we're pleased to inform you…_ the first or even the third time he reads it. Who knows how long he stares at the page before he gets it, that he's in and there is more information on the way, stuff to sign and send back, and, shit, he got in. He got in!

His first, dazed reaction is that he should tell someone—no, not someone, _Adam_. But he doesn't have Adam's phone number, and he doesn't want to email him. He needs to tell him face-to-face, wants him to be the first to know. This resolution lasts until his mom gets home from work. She hasn't gotten halfway through, "Hi, honey, how was your day?" when Tommy blurts out everything. His mom wraps him up in a hug, and they have pizza and ice cream to celebrate, and she tells him at least fourteen times how proud she is. As Tommy is brushing his teeth before bed, he's so dizzy with joy that he can't even imagine how it will feel to tell Adam. He's not completely sure it won't kill him, but at least he'll die happy.

In the morning, Tommy wakes up before his alarm goes off, races through a shower, throws on his clothes, and hurries off to school. He wants to run up to Adam and blurt out his news, but as usual, Adam is mobbed, four people deep, by students who want the same thing Tommy does: Adam's attention all for themselves. Tommy's enthusiasm deflates a bit, and he slinks off to his locker, annoyed that those other kids can't see that _he really needs to talk to Adam_.

He keeps an eye out for other opportunities to catch Adam alone for two minutes, but someone always gets in the way: Miss Porter in the hall after third period, Adam's usual lunchtime fan club, Mr. Lyrus giving Adam hell for the way he filled out some stupid forms, a conversation Tommy overhears when he shows up early for sixth period. The bell rings, and Mr. Lyrus leaves, his expression more constipated than usual. Tommy hurries inside, hoping maybe he can steal a few seconds, just him and Adam. Unfortunately, Sonja Anania is close on his heels, flashing a big smile and a cloying, "Hi, Mr. Lambert."

One of the other groups presents their playlist today, a musical rendition of the Great Depression, and Tommy tries to pay attention, but wisps of "Brother Can You Spare A Dime" and "Trouble" pass through his head without really catching. He stares at Adam, more openly than he usually lets himself, and he hasn't felt this itchy, can't-stand-another-minute sense of anticipation since he was a little kid waiting for Santa to pay a visit.

Eventually, though, the bell rings, and everyone else stampedes for the door. Burbank High's baseball team plays its first game of the state championship series this afternoon, something that hasn't happened in pretty much ever, and apparently the entire school plans to be in the stands. A good thing, too, since Tommy couldn't be held responsible for what he might do if someone got between him and Adam one more time.

"Hey." Adam smiles up at Tommy as he approaches the desk. "What's up?"

"I need to show you something."

Adam frowns as he unfolds the piece of paper, and then his head jerks up, and his smile, wide and brilliant, knocks Tommy sideways. "Oh my God. _Oh my God_! That's—" Adam scrambles up from his chair, throws his arms around Tommy, and actually lifts him off his feet. "Tommy!" There's a whole world of feeling in that one word, and when Adam pulls back, he's beaming. "College is going to be so awesome, you have no idea."

He radiates such _delight_ that Tommy laughs. He feels a rush of gratitude, warm and giddy, for Mrs. Cavanaugh's baby, and whoever decided that three months of Mr. Lyrus was cruel and unusual, and the Cal State LA education school—for everyone and everything that has given him Adam.

There's so much he wants to tell Adam, the feelings so huge he can barely contain them, and yet it all refuses to be turned into words. The best he can manage is, "Thank you," which is pitifully feeble. So he throws his arms around Adam's neck and reels him in and hangs on fiercely, hoping maybe that will get across a little of what he wants to say.

"Oh, _honey_." Adam returns the hug, arms tight around Tommy's waist. "It was all you, your hard work. And I'm so fucking proud of you." He drops a kiss to the top of Tommy's head.

Tommy pulls back to look at him, and Adam's expression is just so warm and, and _fond_. Tommy smiles, goofily probably, and it's an impulse, a rush of affection without calculation that makes him lean up and brush his lips across Adam's, clumsy, off balance, catching just the corner of Adam's mouth.

The feeling after is like pulling his hand back from a hot stove, _oh shit_, adrenaline burning, a sickly sensation in the pit of his stomach as he waits for Adam to, to—stare down at him, mouth softly open, eyes wide in surprise, but also brighter, _darker_ like he—like Tommy isn't the only one who—

The second kiss is nothing like the first, no fumbling, nothing accidental about it; Tommy knows exactly what he wants, eyes closed, chin tilting up, brazen. Adam's lips are warm and slightly chapped, and Tommy drags his tongue over the bottom one, trying to learn it. Adam remains absolutely still, breath puffing warm and heavy, and then slowly he starts to kiss back. Tommy presses closer, feeling the heat of Adam's body, sighing softly, and that seems to unleash something. Adam gathers Tommy up, and the kissing turns hungry, demanding. Adam slides his hand along Tommy's jaw, possessively, and Tommy twists his hands in Adam's shirt, clinging.

There's nothing but silence coming from the hall, and Tommy feels sure he and Adam are the only two people left in the entire school, and he just wants to go on kissing Adam forever. Adam, though, has other ideas. He breaks the kiss and pulls away and locks his elbows, holding Tommy back when he tries to push forward. Adam stares, eyes wide, like he doesn't how they got here. Shock gives way to a crumpled expression, and that's—_fuck_, Tommy never wants to see that on Adam's face.

"Don't!" He grabs at Adam's arm. "Don't look like that. You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't do anything I don't want. Please. Adam—"

Adam shakes his head. "Tommy." His voice sounds scraped raw. "I should never have done that. I know I've crossed some lines with—but that, no." He shakes his head again, more emphatically. "That can never happen again. I'm your teacher, and I can't, I _won't_ take advantage of you."

"You _didn't_," Tommy insists. "You couldn't. And you know you're not just my teacher. You know that."

"God." It comes out half-strangled, and Adam looks a little like he wants to cry. "I've really messed up with you. I swear to God I just wanted—but, shit, I've let this get way out of hand." His voice goes soft. "You could report me. You probably should."

"What?" The shock of that is like ice down Tommy's back; he feels actually sick at the prospect of what Mr. Lyrus would do to Adam. Fire him, maybe even call the cops, definitely ruin his career. "No! I wouldn't—and fuck, I'm trying to tell you, Adam. You didn't do anything wrong, okay? _I_ kissed _you_, remember?" His face goes hot as he says it, and he's shaking, and he just wants Adam to fucking get it already and stop looking like the world has ended.

"We both know it's not as simple as that," Adam says, with this helpless expression, this lingering glimmer of—

Tommy grabs at the opportunity. "Stop acting like you're some perv. You're only four years older than I am. You're not that guy at the club. You—I want—"

"I'm a hell of a lot worse than that guy at the club," Adam cuts him off. "Because I'm your _teacher_. I'm supposed to look out for you, not—"

"Adam—"

"No." Adam takes in a breath and lets it out. "Here's what's going to happen: from now on, our relation—it's all student-teacher between us. No hanging out after school. No talking about music. Just—I know you're not going to like it, but that's how it has to be."

Tommy shakes his head emphatically. "No, it _doesn't_. We could—"

"Come on." Adam touches him lightly on the shoulder, urging him over to the door.

Adam's hand on him makes Tommy's stomach do a somersault, and the wild, stupid thought flashes through his head that maybe Adam will come to his senses. Maybe they'll go someplace, Adam's car or his apartment, or, hey, that shadowy spot out back behind the auditorium. Even though Tommy knows, he _knows_—

"Go on," Adam says gravely, nodding toward the door.

"But—"

"Go home, Tommy."

Adam shuts the door after Tommy, before he can get out another word.

One thing keeps Tommy going: the unshakeable conviction that Adam can't possibly believe his own bullshit. Because it is _such_ fucking bullshit, and that's not Adam. He'll snap out of it. He has to. When he gets over his freak out, then they'll be together, because that's the only thing that makes sense.

At night, it's impossible to sleep because Tommy is one big sense memory, reliving every moment of that afternoon, Adam's lips and Adam's hands and the long line of Adam's body pressed so close, making the layers of fabric between them irrelevant. He kicks off the covers and squirms around restlessly, can't get settled, a feedback loop of _Adam, Adam_ going through his head as he touches himself.

His confidence doesn't falter until he walks through the doors into school the next day, and then his stomach does a vertical leap right up into his throat. What if Adam _doesn't_ get over his bullshit? What if everything is different? Ruined.

Tommy stumbles off to class, distracted, and practically jumps out of his skin when Kent Clements booms out, right next to his ear, "Hey, Tommy Girl, is that a new shade of eye shadow you're trying out? You look so pretty." He snickers at his own stupid asshole joke.

And that's just it. Enough. Tommy turns, feeling vicious. "Yeah, you dumbass. I wear fucking eyeliner. It's not new. I've been doing it for four fucking years. So just get the hell over it already."

Kent goes slack-jawed, mouth actually gaping open, which makes him look even more like a Neanderthal than usual. Tommy enjoys the zing of triumph that shoots through him, even if it isn't quite enough to drown out the low-grade dread about what's going to happen when he sees Adam.

Apparently, the universe hates Tommy even more than he thought. In an average day he runs into Adam two or three times around school, but today there's no sign of him anywhere. Even at lunch, old Mr. Dettweiler, the ancient shop teacher with the ominously missing left pinky finger, patrols the long tables in place of Adam, which sends Adam's fan club into fits of confused speculation. Finally Sonja Anania marches up to Mr. Dettweiler and demands, "Where's Mr. Lambert?" She gets the wry answer, "Mr. Lyrus has him in detention until he finishes up his student evaluations."

The corn dog Tommy braves at lunch threatens to come back up the minute he steps into sixth period. Adam glances up from the leaning tower of paperwork he's struggling through. Tommy manages to get out a scratchy, "Hey," and Adam smiles, without the wariness Tommy was dreading, making a rueful face at the dead forest on his desk. Tommy laughs, and something relaxes inside him, because even if Tommy has no idea what's going to happen next, at least they still have this.

Another playlist presentation today, and Adam works in a bunch of questions about the Han dynasty, sneaky like that. When Tommy raises his hand and gives an answer, Adam doesn't skimp on the good-job beam of approval. Tommy feels almost giddy with relief, because it's all okay. Nothing has changed.

At least, until Tommy lingers after class.

Adam shakes his head, preemptively, before Tommy can say anything. "No. I have work to do, and we talked about this. Student and teacher. That's it."

"But—"

"Tommy." Adam lets out his breath and puts down his pen. "I know you don't want to hear this, because it would have pissed me off when I was your age, but I really am doing this for your own good."

"That's—" _Fucking bullshit_, but Adam doesn't let him get it out.

"You can't be here."

Tommy finds himself once again shooed out and the door shut firmly behind him.

 

Even after this, for an embarrassing number of days, Tommy still clings to the naïve belief that this can't be it, that Adam can't really mean it, no matter what he says, no matter how many times he refuses to talk to Tommy about anything except the constitutional convention or the influence of the Catholic church in medieval Europe. Hope is supposed to be light, uplifting, but Tommy carries his around like a weight that's slowly grinding him down.

On the way to school, he gets a text from Mia: _where u been? parking lot our spot b there_. He rubs at the back of his neck, tiredly, even though the day hasn't even started yet. He thinks about ignoring the text, because Mia will take one look at him and know something's wrong. He doesn't have the energy to explain, and even if he did, he couldn't. Why does Adam have to be his fucking teacher? It sucks in so many ways.

In the end, Tommy winds up at their spot, because he's been a crappy friend lately and Mia won't hesitate to kick his ass for standing her up. She's not there when he arrives, and he sprawls out on the grass and waits, and waits some more, and still no Mia. He checks the time on his phone, only five minutes before the bell rings. He's already just barely holding on by a thread, and the idea that Mia might stand _him_ up unravels him that last little bit.

When she does finally show, she's got her moron prom date in tow, plastered all over her, his beefy hands roaming everywhere, making Mia giggle. The moron lays one last kiss on her before heading inside, deep and wet, an exploratory mission to discover everything he can about Mia's tonsils. Tommy thinks he might hurl, right there, all over the neatly mown lawn.

"See you later, hot stuff," Mia tells the moron with a slap to his ass.

As Brandon ambles off, Tommy can see that his neck is marked by hickeys. It's way too fucking early for shit like that when Tommy's whole damned life sucks. He scrambles to his feet and starts off toward the building, without a word to Mia.

"What the fuck?" She follows, grabbing his arm. "Where do you think you're going?"

"I've got class in, like, three seconds, and watching that asshole drool all over you, just, _gag_," he snaps at her. "I do not have time to waste on shit like that. _Ever_."

Mia narrows her eyes, and Tommy knows to be afraid of that glinty look. It's a tribute to how fucked up he is over Adam that he can't even care.

"Yeah, okay, TJ, whatever the hell," Mia says, tossing her hair. "I don't know what the fuck crawled up your ass and died, but when you're finished being a douche, get back to me."

She lifts her chin and heads into school, and that's just fucking fantastic. Adam won't give him the time of day, not in any way that matters, and now Tommy's best friend is pissed at him too. All the people who have ever tried to tell Tommy that these are the best days of his life can really just go fuck themselves already.

Mia doesn't get mad very often, but when she does, she's really fucking _furious_. She ignores Tommy all day, sailing past him in the hall as if Tommy is invisible. At lunch, she cuddles up to the moron at the asshole-jock table, leaving Tommy on his own, the first time in four years they haven't sat together. He slumps over his lukewarm chicken nuggets at his lonely table by the windows, staring out at the traffic and the office complex across the street, wishing he were anywhere else. _Only seven more days of this bullshit_, Tommy consoles himself. Although at the moment, he's not all that sure he's going to make it.

By the time Tommy has to face the torture of sixth period, he's worked up a blinding headache, and he feels emptied out, exhausted in some fundamental way. He collapses into his seat at the back and plans to spend the next fifty minutes staring blankly into space, but then Adam says, "Are you ready to present your team's playlist, Tommy?"

_Oh, fuck_. Why does life have to hate him? He pulls himself to his feet, disgruntled, and shuffles to the front of the classroom, handing over the flash drive, shoving his hands into his pockets. His head pounds so hard he feels like he's going to be sick to his stomach right there in front of everybody.

Adam pops the flash drive into his computer and fires up iTunes, and Tommy mumbles the name of the first song, not bothering to go into the whole spiel he had planned. What the hell is the point anyway?

His team obviously doesn't share this opinion, giving him wide-eyed stares of _what the fuck?_ Adam frowns at Tommy, puzzled by his lack of setup, but he listens attentively, the way he always does, and pauses after the first song so they can discuss it.

"So why did you guys choose this? What does it say about the French Revolution?" Adam glances questioningly at Tommy, who lets out a heavy sigh and hunches his shoulders and stares down at the floor, at the scuffed puke-green and gray tiles.

He doesn't need to look at his team to know they want to kick his ass. The silence stretches out so long that the rest of the class starts to rustle around uncomfortably, and finally Amanda Grey pipes up, "How, like, chaotic it was to have all the rules of, like, society changed so fast? It goes from being all about the aristocracy and tradition and stuff to being about citizenship and individual rights and stuff."

Adam nods. "Nice insight, Amanda."

It was _Tommy's_ fucking insight, thank you very much, but what does it even matter now? All Adam wants is this, French fucking history and gold stars for right answers and chalk dust in the air, and that's never going to be enough for Tommy.

They move on to the next song and the next, through the whole playlist, and Tommy just stands there like a stump, nothing to contribute while his team picks up the slack. Under ordinary circumstances, looking like an idiot in front of the whole class would make him want to crawl under the nearest desk, but he's only going to know these people for another forty-nine hours. It's really not worth his time to bother being embarrassed about anything.

At last they make it through the six songs, _thank Christ_, and Tommy is more than ready to trudge back to his desk when Adam has to go and throw out, "So, is there anything you want to add, Tommy?" Which would make Tommy think he's just being a dick, except there's this last-ditch hopefulness in Adam's eyes, like maybe Tommy isn't going to be a complete disappointment.

"Yeah, actually," Tommy says, stomping back to his seat, flopping onto his chair. He's had this tight, angry feeling in his chest all day, and now it snaps like a rubber band, and words just spill out of him. "This is bullshit. What's a playlist tell us about history? And who cares about the fucking French Revolution anyway? We're never going to use any of this crap for anything. It's such a waste of time."

An audible gasp goes up in the classroom. Adam freezes, just for a second, and then he presses his mouth together tight, and his eyes go hard and flat. Zane Kilpatrick snickers, which makes something in Tommy die a little, because if they're on the same side, then things are seriously fucked up.

"Does someone want to tell the class why it's important to know about history?" Adam asks coolly, glancing around. "Sonja?"

She sits up very straight, her expression prim. "By understanding the past, we can see where we came from and predict where we're going. And," she shoots a pointed look over her shoulder at Tommy, "make sure we don't keep screwing up in the same stupid ways."

"Nicely put, Sonja," Adam tells her.

Tommy stares down at his desk, traces the ancient graffiti gouged into the wood. He knows he's the asshole in this scenario—really, he gets that—but it still feels like Adam has betrayed him in some way.

It takes an eternity before the bell finally rings, and Tommy lurches to his feet, grabbing his backpack, only to realize on his way up the aisle that Adam could reasonably keep him after school for that little outburst. He drags his feet as he passes Adam's desk, but Adam won't even look at him.

Tommy trudges home, feeling even more like shit than he had that morning. He mumbles at his mom when she asks "How was your day?" and closes himself up in his room. His acceptance letter from Fresno State sits on top of a stack of _Musician_ magazines, because Tommy likes to have it where he can see it. Only now it seems like a symbol of how things can be good one second and all fucked up the next. He shoves the letter into the desk drawer, banging it shut. The last thing he wants to think about right now is his future.

He gets in maybe five minutes of moping time, faced pressed into his pillow, before the door to his room flies open. He lifts his head to tell his mom he doesn't want to talk, but it's Mia standing there.

"Okay, so if you're a bitch to me _and_ Mr. Lambert in the same day I know there's something seriously wrong with you," she declares matter-of-factly. "Word of your little hissy fit is all over school, by the way."

"Leave me alone, okay?"

"Nope." She plops down beside him, bouncing on the mattress. "Come on, TJ. Spill it. You know you want to."

The thing is: she's right. He does want to tell her. Wants to tell _someone_. But he can't, because even though he trusts Mia, he can't risk it, not with this. If the story got out, Adam would be seriously fucked, and Tommy—well, he might be pissed, but he doesn't want anything _bad_ to happen to Adam.

"Girl trouble?" Mia guesses.

He shakes his head.

"O-_kay_. So… boy trouble?"

"No!" He says, a shade too defensively.

"Oh my God!" She goes absolutely still. "Tommy—holy shit—are you having _man_ trouble? Has there been some extracurricular activity I don't know about?" She makes excited flaily motions with her hands. "Damn, baby, was that a fight with your actual _boyfriend_ you had in sixth period today?"

Tommy bolts up. "Shut up, Mia. Just shut the fuck up. Seriously."

Her eyes go huge. "Oh my God! You really are, aren't you? Shit! You're seriously fucking Mr. Lambert!"

"No! It was just a kiss. We're not—he _won't_." He gives Mia a pleading look. "You can't tell anybody. Okay? _Please_."

"Oh, honey." She throws her arms around him and squeezes hard. "Your student-teacher secret is safe with me. And Mr. Lambert is just being responsible and shit, you know that, right? If he weren't your teacher, I'm sure he'd totally nail you."

"I was an asshole today," he mumbles into her T-shirt. "He probably hates me."

"No way, Tommy boy. You're way too cute to hate. Now, come on. Let's go drown your sorrows in ice cream and really stupid TV." She grabs his arm and drags him up from the bed. "And when you do fuck Mr. Lambert, I want to hear some serious damn details."

"Mia!"

She laughs. "How soon is graduation? Like a week? Yeah, I'm not going to have to wait long to hear about your porn-capades."

"Shut up!"

But he 's actually laughing a little when he says it.

Mia proves right, as she tends to be; Adam doesn't hate Tommy, not that Tommy can see, anyway. He's just kind of careful, keeping a wary eye out, as if waiting for another eruption. After a couple of days, he judges it safe to resume calling on Tommy in class, and Tommy dutifully offers up his answers, in a quiet, chastened voice. He doesn't try to stay after class again; actually, he spends as little time with Adam as possible, slipping into his seat just before the bell rings, loping out the door as soon as Adam dismisses them. Going back to being nothing more than the problem kid in the last row depresses the hell out of him.

Prom feels like an afterthought more than ever, and in fact, Tommy completely forgets about it until he gets a snippy call from Sonja Anania. "I shouldn't even go to the stupid dance with you after that shit you pulled in class the other day."

"Okay," Tommy says, because who the hell cares? He was only going because of Adam and now—

"Oh, don't even. You're not getting off that easy. I went ahead and reserved your tux. Not to say that you wouldn't have done it right—okay, yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I'll text you the details. You need to get me a corsage, one of the wrist ones so it doesn't tear my dress, pink flowers, roses not carnations. Think you can handle that?"

"_Yes_," Tommy grumbles at her. "I'm not a moron."

"No," Sonja agrees cheerfully. "Just a jackass. But, hey, more Mr. Lambert for me."

Tommy tosses the phone away with a roll of his eyes. Not for the first time he wonders why he agreed to go to the prom with a girl who hates him.

At least, the tux turns out to be less heinous than he's expecting. He actually kind of likes the pink cummerbund, imagining the looks he'll get from Kent Clements and his buddies. Fucking with assholes is always fun, even if that's the only thing he's got to look forward to about the dance. Tommy intends to ignore Sonja's orders about the corsage, but his mom intervenes. "If you're going to the prom, then you're going to be a gentleman about it." She makes him spend half his allowance on the flowers Sonja wanted, which are way more expensive than carnations, he discovers.

The evening of, Tommy does his makeup and, after a few minutes of debate, opts for his Creepers instead of the squeaky, too-shiny dress shoes his mother bought him. The Creepers are way more awesome, and Sonja Anania isn't the boss of him. It's time he showed her that.

Sonja answers the door herself when Tommy rings the bell, giving him the once-over before she lets him into the house. "Well, it's not as bad as it could have been, I guess."

There are about a million pictures to suffer through, Sonja's mom giving them a big lipstick-y smile before each one, saying, "Oh, don't you two make a gorgeous couple."

"I told her it's not like that," Sonja says with an eyeroll on the way out to the car, "but she has all these, like, 1950s ideas about high school." She stops in her tracks when she catches sight of Tommy's mom's station wagon and lets out a weary sigh. "My mother has no clue."

The grand ballroom at the Hilton is draped in crepe paper, candles on all the tables, a buffet set up along one wall with platters of healthy snacks everyone ignores and a big plastic bowl of bright pink punch. True to her word, Sonja dumps Tommy almost immediately after they arrive, pausing only long enough to have her picture taken on Tommy's arm by the underclassman doing photography detail for the school paper. "Later," Sonja says while Tommy is still half-blinded by the flash. She sweeps away, in search of Adam.

Tommy spends five minutes listening to the band; they suck, no big surprise there, considering that Kent Clements is on the prom organizing committee. He slinks off to the refreshment table for lack of anything better to do. He crunches on a piece of celery and takes a sip of cloying, fruity shit that would be improved about a thousand percent with a whole lot of Everclear in it. There's not much point in coming to a dance with a girl who hates him, who only asked him in the first place so she wouldn't have to buy a stag ticket. He's starting to think he should get the hell out of there—although he'll have to figure out somewhere to go besides home, because if his mom finds out she spent all that money on a tux just so he could go to the prom for ten minutes things will not be happy at their house—when he catches sight of Adam.

He's, oh fuck, _gorgeous_ in a sleek black suit with a crisp white shirt and a black tie, like something out of a magazine. With a little more glitter, Tommy could easily imagine Adam wearing that onstage, hair slicked back Elvis-style.

The only thing that keeps Tommy from stalling there, staring, mouth open, possibly for the rest of the evening, is Mia, who launches herself at him with an eardrum-popping squeal. "Tooommy! You made it!" She draws back, puzzled. "Where's Sonja?"

"Wherever Mr. Lambert is," Tommy says dryly, and sure enough, when they glance across the room, there's Sonja, pushing her way over to Adam's side, smiling up at him with this pathetic, moony expression on her face. Tommy can only hope he's never looked like that, although he suspects the odds are not in his favor.

Mia leans close and drops her voice. "You got to fight for your man, Tommyboy." Tommy makes a _please shut up_ face at her, and Mia elbows him in the ribs. "Don't be a wuss!"

The moron, of all people, saves Tommy from having to defend himself. "Hey, Ratliff, nice lipstick. You mind if I steal her?" He sweeps Mia up, his arms wrapping around her.

"Oh hey, gotta go," Mia giggles, "dance or _something_."

Tommy frantically pushes away thoughts about what the "or something" might be, because this night is already kind of sucking. The last thing he needs is to be scarred for life. He sneaks another glance over at Adam, trying to hide behind his bangs, but Adam is staring right at him, and there's no way to look away. The moment feels like it lasts as long as Tommy has been alive, the expression on Adam's face strange and unreadable. If this were some stupid teen movie, Adam would stride across the room and take Tommy's hand and fuck what everyone else might think, but this is life, and worse than that, it's _Tommy's life_. Miss Porter leans up and whispers in Adam's ear, oblivious to what's going on, and Adam laughs, easy and open, and then he's offering _Miss Porter_ his hand. Kids stop to stare and snicker as Adam whirls her out onto the dance floor.

_What the fuck? Adam doesn't even like girls_, Tommy thinks sourly, but his chest clenches anyway watching them, because Miss Porter is in Adam's arms, and Tommy remembers so vividly how that feels, and he's never going to have that again.

He stares until the song is over and Adam and Miss Porter drift back to their chaperoning duties. Tommy makes for the exit; fuck, he needs some air. He finds a knot of prom exiles huddled out back, leaning against the wall, looking bored as all fuck, smoking and passing around a flask. It's no one Tommy would ordinarily hang out with—a motley bunch, some jocks, one of the guys who sells pot in the school parking lot in the mornings, the greasy kid who was in shop class with Tommy in ninth grade—but they make room for him, like he's one of them. Tommy bums a cigarette and takes a swig of what turns out to be vodka and then quickly grabs the flask back, because, hey, _vodka_. That's totally what this night has been missing.

"Prom shit sucks, huh?" Trent Reed, backup infielder on the school baseball team, shares his cigarette.

Tommy takes a long drag. "_Fucking_ sucks."

Trent nods earnestly, as if Tommy has just spouted wisdom. The flask makes its way back around, or actually a different flask, because Tommy gets a mouthful of bourbon this time, and that thing where you're not supposed to mix your alcohol—who the fuck really cares? By the time Tommy finally drifts back inside, he and Trent Reed have bonded over their mutual love of The Cure, which seems less surprising than it might have before Tommy downed at least four different kinds of booze. He lists to one side as he fumbles the door open, his hands feeling not quite like they're attached to him.

He runs into Mia almost immediately. She winds an arm around his neck, pulling him in to babble in his ear, "Oh my God, Brandon is so fucking needy. He keeps talking about me coming to visit him at Iowa State next year. If I really didn't want to get laid on prom night, I would ditch his ass and his stupid after-party." She sniffs at Tommy. "Shit. I don't have to ask what you were doing outside. You better not get anywhere near Mr. Lyrus."

Tommy nods, although Mr. Lyrus is little more than an abstract concept at the moment, distant and unimportant. "So, where we going?" The words have to fight their way out of his mouth, slurred and slightly incoherent.

"You want to go to a jock party? Seriously?"

Tommy shrugs. He needs to go somewhere. Can't stay here, with Adam looking like a walking wet dream and dancing with _girls_ and not giving a shit that Tommy misses him like he'd miss his own arm if he lost it.

"Oh, honey." Mia kisses him on the cheek. "You're going to hate yourself so much in the morning."

Whatever. That won't be any different than it is now.

He ends up jamming himself into the back of somebody's already overloaded SUV. A vague thought of Sonja and his mom's car abandoned in the lot flits through his head, but the warm burn of alcohol in his blood takes the edge off every responsible impulse he has. Nothing seems quite real, and it's too hard to care about anything.

Inside, family photos from ski vacations and European cities that Tommy doesn't recognize are scattered around, and Tommy vaguely wonders how stupid parents have to be to leave town on prom weekend. Not his problem, though, and he wanders through rooms until he finds the kitchen, shiny with glass and tile and stainless steel. Plastic cups and enough bottles of booze to outfit a liquor store stand lined up on the counter. Tommy slips in among the hordes swarming the alcohol and manages to come away with a big cup of something.

He downs it and goes back for more, who knows how many times, and things get hazy, only random moments here and there blaring out with any clarity. Somehow, he ends up out back around the pool, squeezed onto a lounge chair with some girl he doesn't recognize who's possibly drunker than he is, her hair mussed, makeup smeared, dress rucked up around her hips. She keeps asking, in a barely intelligible garble, "I look okay, right? Do I look okay?"

"Ratliff." Kent Clements' voice booms out. "You gonna hit that? Huh? You're not too much of a pussy to hit that, are you?"

Horror that he's actually hanging out with Kent sobers Tommy up a little, and he manages to lurch to his feet and totter back into the house. He looks around, increasingly light-headed, and doesn't see Mia. No reason to stay then. He stumbles out onto the front porch and down the sidewalk. The neighborhood looks familiar, and then his bleary brain manages to come up with why. He's passed this neighborhood on the way to Adam's condo. It's not far from here.

Nobody walks anywhere in L.A., and Tommy has to stop at every corner to press the walk light button. He's none too steady on his feet, so it takes forever to get there. Or at least that's how it feels. There's no answer at Adam's, and the depressing thought goes through Tommy's head that maybe he stayed over at Miss Porter's. That doesn't stop him from continuing to bang on the door.

Eventually it swings open, and Adam stands there in a weak pool of light, wearing sleep pants and a T-shirt, hair sticking out in all directions, blinking like a surprised mole. Maybe it's late?

"Tommy?" He sounds confused.

Tommy takes a staggering step inside. "Adam," he says in a pitiful voice.

"_Tommy_." Adam's arms go around him, holding him up, pulling him close. "Tell me you didn't drive here. Oh God, you didn't, did you?"

Tommy shakes his head, his face pressed against Adam's shoulder. "Walked."

"You walked here?" Adam says disbelievingly.

"Didn't mean that crap I said." It feels really important for Adam to know that. "I'm sorry, Adam. I'm sorry." To his horror, Tommy finds he's sniffling a little, but he can't stop babbling apologies.

Adam's arms tighten around him. "Oh honey, I know. I'm not mad at you. None of this is your fault. I'm—I fucked up."

Tommy shakes his head. No, that's not it at all. Why can't Adam get it? Tommy clings to Adam's T-shirt, wanting to climb inside Adam's skin, as if he can convince him with the close press of his body.

"I never wanted to hurt you." Adam strokes a hand over Tommy's hair, and his voice is low, gentle.

Adam's shirt is bunched up in Tommy's fists, and the skin of Adam's neck, warm and salty and good-smelling, is right there for Tommy to rub his cheek against. Maybe he can still get what he wants. Except Tommy's head is reeling, and his knees give out on him, the traitors. Suddenly Adam's grip is the only thing keeping him from hitting the floor.

"It's okay, honey. I've got you."

The room tilts and wobbles, making Tommy seasick. He scowls at the walls. _Fucking stay still!_ But they don't, and he feels his stomach trying to crawl up his throat. He squeezes his eyes shut to keep from making a fool of himself all over Adam's carpet.

"Come on. You're going to need this," Adam says, and then Tommy's sinking, would be falling if it weren't for Adam's arms around him.

He opens his eyes to find himself kneeling in front of the toilet. _I'm okay. Not going to puke_, he wants to say, and then his stomach revolts, and everything that's gone in comes out in urgent, shuddery heaves that last long after he's empty. Adam rubs his back, hand warm through the layers of Tommy's jacket and dress shirt. He murmurs comfortingly, although Tommy is too drunk and miserable to make out exactly what he's saying.

The room lurches again, violently, when Adam pulls Tommy to his feet. For a second Tommy thinks maybe he's not quite done, but, no, he's okay. Well, he's not going to hurl again anyway.

"Rinse." Adam pushes a Dixie cup into his hand. The mouthwash hits the back of Tommy's throat unexpectedly, burning, making him cough and sputter.

Adam squeezes Tommy's shoulder. "Okay, maybe not such a good idea. Come on. Let's get you to bed."

_Bed. Oh fuck yeah._ Tommy sags against Adam on the way to the bedroom, fuzzy-brained, loose-limbed. The idea of lying down with Adam sounds so appealing. He just needs to stay awake a little longer. Little longer. His eyes don't want to cooperate, though, no matter how hard he tries to force them open.

Adam steers him over to the bed and slides the jacket off him. His hands go to Tommy's waist, pulling at the cummerbund, whipping the belt off him, and working his fly open. _Please_, Tommy tries to say, but it comes out a sleepy garble. Adam takes down Tommy's pants, and Tommy's dick wants to show an interest, but unconsciousness is coming on hard and fast, no matter how much Tommy tries to fight it.

"Come on." The room tilts precariously, and Tommy flails, but it's only Adam lowering him onto the bed. "It's okay, baby. Just sleep."

Tommy does, even though it feels like falling.

Morning comes like a sledgehammer. Tommy wakes up to the glare of sunlight in his eyes, moans out loud, turns onto his side, only to moan even louder at the blinding pain in his temples. _Fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck._ He _hates_ tequila. And bourbon. And gin. And Kahlua. Fuck, he hates _everything_. He groans again, more pitifully, and hates his hangover most of all, because he's in Adam's bed and he feels too shitty to even enjoy that fact.

There's a glass of water and a couple of aspirin sitting on the bedside table. Tommy doesn't remember them being there when he went to bed, and he wonders if Adam checked on him in the night. That thought makes him feel marginally less like he wants to die, and he takes the aspirin and drinks the water, all of it, his dry throat working greedily.

He must fall back to sleep, because the shadows are all different when he groggily opens his eyes again. The clock on Adam's night table says it's after noon, and _oh, shit_, his mom, and oh shit, oh shit, _Adam_. He lurches to his feet and wobbles off to the bathroom. He throws water on his face and uses his finger as a makeshift toothbrush. The taste of Crest makes him gag, his stomach still touchy after its mistreatment last night, but he's willing to risk another round with the porcelain God to get the taste of suck-ass prom night out of his mouth.

The scent of coffee wafts from the kitchen, and on the way there, Tommy notices a rumpled blanket on the couch, apparently where Adam spent the night. He feels a pang; Adam didn't have to give up his bed for him.

"I wondered when you'd make an appearance." Adam pushes a mug into his hands, leaning against the kitchen counter watching Tommy gulp down the black coffee, trying for a disapproving look, not quite able to manage it.

Tommy holds out his mug for more, and Adam shakes his head as he refills it. "There goes my big plan to give you hell for being totally irresponsible and scaring the shit out of me."

"'m sorry," Tommy says, eyes down, holding his mug close. He really, really is, except for the part where being irresponsible landed him here, in Adam's kitchen, wearing nothing but his rumpled dress shirt.

Adam frowns at him. "Hey." He cups the back of Tommy's head, making Tommy look at him. "I don't want you to be sorry. I want you not to do it again."

His gaze is so intense, an urgent crease between his eyebrows, like what happens to Tommy is really important to him.

A blare of Green Day interrupts, and Tommy really fucking hates Adam's phone right then. "Hey, Longineu. Yeah, I talked to Lee already. He said—no, I haven't—can I call you back later? I have someone here—_no_, it's not like that—I'm hanging up now!" He tosses his phone onto the counter with a sigh.

Tommy fights off a flash of jealousy; Lee must be better, ready to start playing with the band again. And then Tommy thinks of something he's been curious about. He finally feels bold enough to ask. "What did they mean—your bandmates—when you brought me to practice? That I looked like somebody?"

Adam tightens his jaw. "Nothing. It's—"

"_Not_ nothing," Tommy insists, stubbornly. "Why did you make them shut up? Why don't you want to tell me?"

There's a long pause. "You look—I kind of have a type." Clearly it costs him to admit it.

Tommy needs a moment to process that. "Oh." He stares at Adam, in wonder. "So you—and I'm—oh fuck yes!"

He launches himself at Adam, hands grabby, kissing blindly, and, God, he's _thought_ that Adam was as into this as he is, ethical hesitations aside, but it's so much better to _know_.

Adam kisses back, just for a second, before his brain catches up with him. "Oh, hey, no. _No_," he says more firmly when Tommy tries to stick his tongue in Adam's mouth again. "We're not doing this."

"But why?" Tommy latches onto a patch of skin under Adam's jaw, scratchy where he hasn't shaved yet, and sucks loudly, trying to leave a mark. "I want you, and you want me. Don't try to say you don't." He presses closer, and, yeah, that's definitely Adam's dick saying yes.

_Fuck, Adam's dick_. A shiver goes down Tommy's back, want and maybe a little fear and definitely a dazed sense of _wow, oh wow_.

"Adam." Tommy tries to kiss him again, and when Adam turns his head, he settles for mouthing the line of his jaw.

"No," Adam says sharply, hands on Tommy's shoulders. "How many times do I have to explain to you why this is a bad idea?"

"Isn't," Tommy insists. He's so fucking sick of Adam brushing him off like he doesn't know anything. He wants to do something that Adam won't be able to ignore.

He rolls his hips, pushing his cock against Adam's, and bites at Adam's lips, hard enough to make Adam flinch. _Ignore that_, he thinks.

Adam stills, just for a second, and then his hands close around Tommy's biceps, fingers digging in. He shoves Tommy back against the counter, hard, probably leaving a bruise. Tommy doesn't give a shit about that, because Adam's body follows, pressed tight all along Tommy's, knees to hips to chest. Tommy had his first kiss on the playground in kindergarten, and he's been having sex semi-regularly since tenth grade, but nothing has ever felt like this. Adam slides his hand along Tommy's jaw, touch firm, possessive, and he surges forward, pushing Tommy harder against the cabinets. Tommy's knees buckle—from the momentum, he insists to himself, not because the touch of Adam's tongue against his leaves him light-headed.

_This is how he kisses his boyfriend_, Tommy thinks, with a fresh flare of excitement. Nothing careful about it, no hint of Mr. Lambert in the way Adam drags his hands down Tommy's side, a slow, lingering grope, and then slides them around to cup Tommy's ass, pulling Tommy more firmly against his body. Tommy clings weakly, fists clenched in Adam's shirt, and kisses back until he can feel the pulse pounding in his temple. This is the perfect time to try having sex on a kitchen floor for the first time, he decides.

Adam has other thoughts, wrenching himself away, taking a big step back, panting and red-faced. "No. No, no, _no_. "

"But—" _You want to_.

"Get dressed. I'll drive you home."

"Adam."

"Seriously, Tommy," Adam says tiredly. "Do you really want me to be the kind of person who fucks his students?"

_Oh, fuck, yes, please_, he knows, isn't the right answer, so he doesn't say anything. Adam stands there, looking quietly devastated, and that kills whatever lingering impulse Tommy has to push the issue. He turns and heads back to the bedroom and pulls on yesterday's clothes.

"Need to pick up my car at school," he mumbles once they're in the Sentra.

The trip there is painfully silent, and Tommy lets the door slam when he gets out. He starts to his car, and stops, because _fuck that shit_, he has something he wants to say. He stomps back over to Adam's car and raps on the window with his knuckles. Adam rolls it down with this _please don't do this_ expression on his face, which just pisses Tommy off even more.

"I'm _eighteen_, Adam. Old enough to make my own decisions. When are you going to stop treating me like some stupid kid who doesn't know what he's doing?"

The expression in Adam's eyes goes flat. "When you stop acting like it."

An actual slap to the face would hurt less, and there's nothing to do but turn around and get in the car and drive off. Tommy wants to gun the engine and tear out of there, a squeal of tires and flying gravel, but that would just prove Adam's point. So he drives like a responsible citizen, hands on the wheel at ten and two, only glancing in the rearview mirror to check traffic, not to catch one last, pitiful glance at Adam's car receding in the distance.

There's an empty, aching place in Tommy, and he hunches forward a little, as if that will somehow make it better. He wants so desperately, and it's not just sex—it's everything. And there's nothing wrong about it. Tommy doesn't know how to convince Adam of any of this, and there's a part of him that almost wants to give up, because he's tired of feeling so fucking awful. But it's Adam, and he can't just let it go. He _can't_.

His mom gives him a look when he straggles through the door.

"Um." Probably the car ride would have been better spent inventing an excuse why he was out all night than pining over Adam, but Tommy is only human.

"Just don't make a habit of it," his mother says. "And don't forget, we still need to send that form in to the college to let them know you're coming."

Tommy nods blankly and heads upstairs. He could use a shower, but he's too worn out to stand up for five minutes, so he flops onto his bed and stares up at the ceiling. The form for Fresno State is there in his desk drawer, but he doesn't have the heart to think about that right now.

That whole "not with a bang, but a whimper" thing perfectly describes the last few days of Tommy's high school career. It slips by, like everything is a dream. In Adam's class, they spend the time chatting about what they're doing for the summer, the things they're looking forward to about college, where they hope to be in five years. _With you_, Tommy thinks miserably, but you can't always get what you want. That's the real fucking lesson Adam has taught him.

He keeps his head down, trying to blend in with the institutional green paint on the wall, making it easy for Adam to ignore him. He doesn't, though, much to Tommy's annoyance. There's a look on Adam's face, fucking _understanding_, when he asks Tommy in a gentle voice what he wants from his future. _Nothing. Everything._ Tommy just shrugs. Adam already knows, and Tommy's not going to get it, and he doesn't see the point in putting on some show for the class, rattling off some bullshit about college and music programs and looking for a new band. Anyway, Tommy's future isn't Adam's concern anymore. That was Adam's choice, not Tommy's.

Finally, finally, the last day rolls around, and the final bell rings, and Tommy lets out a long breath. It's over. All of it.

Except apparently not.

On his way past Adam's desk, Tommy keeps his eyes down, intent on getting the hell out of there. It startles him when Adam says, "Tommy, I need to talk to you."

"What—"

Adam shakes his head, waiting until the last of the straggling students has left. "Yeah, so, you owe me some detention, don't you think?"

"But—" Tommy's mouth falls open. "Why—"

Adam raises an eyebrow at him, accusing Tommy of having a short memory. "For being a dick in class?"

"Wait, you—"Adam had said he wasn't mad about that, hadn't he? Or was that some figment of Tommy's drunken imagination? "But it's the last day of school for, like, ever!"

"Yeah, and you probably have plans with your friends too," Adam says, with annoying sympathy.

Tommy does in fact have plans, since it's the last day of school _for fucking ever_, and those plans are with Mia, who will kick his ass if he doesn't show. For a moment, he stalls there, contemplating rebellion. The last bell has rung, and Tommy is officially done with this place. Technically Adam has no more say-so over him. But that's only technically. When Adam jerks his head toward a desk in the front row, Tommy lets out a put-upon sigh and flops down into the seat. They have to be the only two people left in the entire building, since anyone who 's not a complete loser would have something better to do than linger. Even Mr. Lyrus is probably on his way home to drink a beer.

There's a pause, one that goes on forever, in which Adam doesn't say or do anything, except give Tommy this long, assessing look. If this were anyone else in the world, Tommy would stare back with all the defiant bravado he could muster or slump in his chair with an _I don't give a fuck_ attitude, but it's Adam, so he just waits.

"Technically, I may not be your teacher anymore," Adam says, getting up. "But I still have things to teach you, and this is something I wish I'd learned way earlier than I did." He lays a stack of papers down on the desk; they're Tommy's college acceptance forms. "Don't screw yourself over just because you're pissed at some guy."

"You—" Tommy looks up sharply. "Where'd you get these?"

"Your mom called me. She was worried you were having trouble deciding on a school." He adds more quietly, "You didn't tell me you got into Chico and Northridge too."

Tommy shrugs. "We haven't exactly been talking a lot lately."

"Hey." Adam kneels down beside him. "Don't do this. Don't fuck up your future because—"

"That's _not_ what this is about," Tommy says, turning an indignant look on Adam. "I wasn't intentionally screwing up on sending in the forms, and I do want to go to college. I just—I've been kind of distracted lately. _You_ distract me." He swallows, his mouth just stupidly dry.

"Tommy—"

"No. Don't say it. This isn't hero worship, and I'm not too young, and you haven't abused your authority, or whatever you think. You've never done anything bad to me, ever. And it's not a crush. Not just sex. I really, really like you, _a lot_, and I get you, and you get me, and I feel so close to you, and I'm pretty sure you feel the same way if you'd just—"

He fumbles for Adam's hand and hangs on determinedly. He'd really like to kiss Adam—is practically dying for it—but he knows Adam won't want to do that here, and Tommy's trying to show off his maturity.   
"How can I prove I know what I'm doing if you won't even give me a chance? And you're not my teacher anymore, remember?" Tommy argues, very sensibly he feels. Maybe Adam thinks so too; he doesn't pull away.

"I'm not supposed to feel this way about you," Adam murmurs, a little sadly.

"Yeah, well, too damned bad."

Adam lets out a surprised laugh and gives Tommy's hand a quick squeeze before straightening up. "I may not be your teacher anymore, but Mr. Lyrus is still my boss."

Tommy nods. "I know. This isn't the place."

"So pick a school and fill out the form," Adam smiles, "and we can get out of here."

It's all the motivation Tommy needs. He's never had any doubt where he wants to go, and he speeds through the paperwork for Fresno. On their way out, Adam closes the door to the classroom and locks it, giving it a last, fond look. "I'm really going to miss this."

"What? You're not going to—"

Adam shakes his head. "Mrs. Cavanaugh will be back in the fall. So I'm job searching."

"Oh." Tommy should have figured that, and it's not like he's going to be around come September to feel Adam's absence. Still, he can't imagine this place without him.

"So, where are your friends hanging out? Hermosa Beach pier?" Adam asks as they cross the parking lot to his car.

Tommy nods. "Not that—I don't care about that."

"Mm-hmm," Adam says, noncommittally.

They stop off at the post office, and Adam insists on hovering over Tommy while he buys a stamp and drops the envelope into the mail slot. Back in the car, Tommy expects Adam to take the familiar route to his apartment, because it's not just about sex, but _come on_. Enough is enough already. Instead, it becomes clear two minutes into the trip that Adam is heading toward Hermosa Beach pier.

Oh, for _fuck's_ sake.

"If you've changed your mind—" Tommy doesn't even _know_ what he's going to do. Hopefully not cry.

Adam shakes his head. "Just trust me, okay?"

He finds a place to park, not so close to the pier that they're likely to run into anybody from school. Tommy assumes a preemptive pissed-off expression. He's pretty sure he's not going to like whatever Adam is about to say, but then Adam crooks his finger, and his voice goes soft, "Come over here."

Tommy leans across the seat, a little warily. He's been disappointed before. This time is different, _thank God_. Adam slides his hand along the side of Tommy's neck, tilting Tommy's chin up, taking charge of his mouth. Tommy whimpers and presses close, his knee jammed hard against the gearshift. Adam hums into the kiss and strokes a hand in maddening circles over Tommy's thigh.

"God, _Adam_."

"I've wanted to do this so much," Adam says, with something like wonder in his voice.

"So why—I don't care about being here. We should just—"

Adam shakes his head and unwinds his arm from around Tommy's shoulder. "Maybe you don't care now, but you _will_. I'm not going to let you piss off your friends because of me. You only get one last day of high school."

"But I want—"

"Yeah. We're going to have sex." Tommy's heart can't decide what it wants to do, a vertical leap or beat right out of his chest. When Adam leans in, strokes his thumb along Tommy's jaw and kisses him again, he shivers all over. "We've got all the time in the world to be together. Right now, your friends are waiting. So." He nods toward the car door.

"I want to see you _tomorrow_," Tommy insists.

Adam hooks a hand around the back of Tommy's neck and lays a kiss on him, or actually three, hard and fast to his mouth, an IOU, and then pushes Tommy out the door. "Go. Make memories."

Tommy lingers on the sidewalk, watching Adam drive off. The memories he's really interested in making are going to happen in Adam's bed, but he's known Adam long enough to realize there's no arguing with that stubborn streak of his.

"Oh, you _so_ owe me details." Mia is smirking when Tommy turns around. "Because I'm next to positive that was Mr. Lambert's car I just saw driving away."

"Nothing's even happened yet," Tommy says, not a little bitterly. "We had this big declaration thing, but then he insisted I come here instead of home with him, because," he shrugs, "I don't know, he thinks I'm supposed to have some meaningful last-day-of-high-school experience or something."

"Okay. Fine. Let me revise. You _will_ owe me details in the very near future."

Probably, Tommy should try to deny or deflect or something, but there's just no holding back the smile that breaks out all over his face.

Mia shakes her head. "Oh God, look at you. I can't even imagine how ridiculous you're going to be after you've actually slept with him."

Tommy smiles even harder, proving her point.

She slings an arm around his shoulders. "Come on. You haven't missed anything. Nobody's even puked or gotten bitch-slapped yet, but Matt Dawson has a whole case of Cuervo that he pinched from his dad's store in the trunk of his car, so I still have high hopes."

Tommy laughs, and Mia maneuvers him over toward the Italian ice stand, where Javy Rodriguez is loitering around. Tommy darts a glance at Mia, who shrugs. "What can I say? Sometimes I like them smart." Javy perks up when he sees Mia, a tinge of pink creeping up his cheeks. "And, you know," she adds, "adorably virginal."

"Hey, Tommy," Javy says, but he's staring at Mia with hearts in his eyes.

It's pretty clear that Tommy isn't the only one who's going to have a story to tell tomorrow, but unlike Mia, Tommy so doesn't want to hear any of the details.

Dawn breaks just as they're pulling out of the pier's parking lot, a pyrotechnic burst of purple and gold on the horizon, a promise that today is going to be the most awesome day ever. Or maybe that's just Tommy projecting. Whatever. He can see omens if he wants to.

The window's down, and Mia's hair blows in the wind like streamers, and she drives with even more manic glee than usual, radio blaring. Javy slumps across the back seat, asleep, looking decidedly less virginal than he had fourteen hours earlier. Tommy drums his fingers on his thigh in time to Bad Religion spilling out of the speakers. He's reached that perfectly evened out state that comes from not getting any sleep at all, relaxed down to his last molecule. Maybe Adam was right after all. Maybe this was exactly what he needed, one last night of being a high school student. Because he feels different now, satisfied like a chapter is over, and he's ready to begin whatever comes next.

Mia gets off the freeway and makes all the right turns to Adam's place without directions. Tommy doesn't bother to ask how she knows where Adam lives, because she's Mia. She knows shit.

"Have the time of your life, baby," Mia says, smiling as Tommy climbs out of the car, her face bright and happy.

He comes around to the driver's side and kisses her on the lips through the open window, because she's gorgeous, and she's his best friend, and he's more than a little in love with the whole world right now.

She giggles and kisses him back with a loud smack and drives off waving. Tommy takes the steps up to Adam's place two at a time, so giddy he can't feel the ground. It quickly becomes clear that polite knocking isn't going to do the trick. Adam's neighbors are really going to start to hate him, but whatever the hell.

"Lambert, get your ass out of bed!" He bangs on the door.

It takes a few more minutes before the door finally swings open, a rumpled, blinking Adam staring at Tommy in a sleep-drunk stupor.

"What—"

"It's tomorrow." Tommy slips past him into the apartment.

"Still dark out," Adam mumbles, with adorable bleariness, shutting the door.

Tommy grabs him by the T-shirt, and the kiss lacks finesse, but he's already waited so long. He doesn't let go until Adam starts flailing his arms and making muffled noises like maybe he needs to breathe. Adam's expression is more alert, and he slides his hand along Tommy's throat, tipping Tommy's chin up with this thumb for the next kiss. A low moan spills out of Tommy without his permission, but what the hell? It's not like Adam doesn't know he's desperate for it. He scrambles out of his shirt, throwing it to the floor, and presses close, arms grappling around Adam's neck, pulling him in.

"Hey, slow down," Adam says against Tommy's mouth.

"No." Tommy breaks the kiss, grabs Adam's hand, and pulls him down the hall to his bedroom.

He does an awkward dance over to the bed, kicking off his jeans while stripping the T-shirt up over Adam's head, groping whatever bare skin he can reach, catching the corner of Adam's mouth in a messy, off-balance kiss. _Naked, Adam, please, please, please_ thrums through his head.

"Jesus, Tommy," Adam says, panting as Tommy attacks the drawstring of his sleep pants, and, fuck yeah, that's Adam's _cock_, rising to meet Tommy's fingers. "I'm not going anywhere."

Maybe, but Tommy's not taking any chances. He pushes Adam down onto the bed and strips the pants off him. Adam is so gorgeous Tommy's mouth waters, long legs and broad chest, huge fucking dick, freckles everywhere that Tommy wants to connect with his tongue like dots. He clambers on top, and shit, _naked_—he—both of them—and that's Adam's _dick_ nudging wetly against Tommy's thigh. He freezes, suddenly all deer-in-headlights.

Adam smiles up at him. "Come here, baby."

He rubs his hand up Tommy's thigh, and Tommy falls into the kiss. Adam hums happily, sliding his hands over Tommy's back, slowly, exploring. _Naked with Adam_. It's startling, but the good kind, and Tommy makes an urgent noise in the back of his throat, hips moving, blind thrusts, desperate for skin and friction.

Adam arches up, fingers catching at Tommy's hips. He's staring at Tommy, looking right into him, his face stark and intent. Tommy has never seen that expression before. _Because this is how Adam looks when he's having sex_. Tommy shivers and squirms and kisses more frantically.

He lets out a soft oof when Adam flips him over. Adam settles between Tommy's legs, his warm weight pressing Tommy into the mattress, his mouth moving along Tommy's neck, his body restless, sliding against Tommy's.

"Oh, fuck. Please." Tommy clings, trying to get more of that.

"God, Tommy." Adam's voice rumbles low and rough against Tommy's ear, and when Adam bites the lobe, it stings deliciously. "I want to—"

He trails off, leaving it open-ended, and Tommy feels free to fill in the blanks himself: _Do everything to you._ Yeah, yeah. "_Please_."

Tommy gasps, his back bowing sharply, when Adam licks a nipple and then sucks, teasing with teeth. _Oh fuck, fuck yes_. That's what Tommy has needed since _always_ and never even knew. He locks his legs around Adam's waist and pushes up. "Come on, come on!"

Adam laughs. "Bossy. Mmm." He leans down for a kiss, deeper and more hungry, thumb stroking along Tommy's jaw, and starts to move again.

Tommy moans out loud at the sensation, the clutch of bodies, the slide of bare skin, Adam's cock, hard and wet, snug against his own. He feels like he's climbing and falling at the same time. _Shit_. Adam begins moving more insistently, an arousing swelter everywhere they touch. Tommy sucks down a breath, trembling, and grips Adam's biceps, as wetness spreads over his belly. Adam groans, "Tommy," and thrusts wildly, and comes too.

Adam swipes the corner of the sheet over their bellies, cleaning them up as well as he can. They curl up together, Tommy's head resting on Adam's shoulder. Now that a little of the urgency has burned off it would be easy for things to turn awkward, big change in their relationship and all. Even though Tommy has been having sex since the tenth grade, it's always been quick and furtive, hoping nobody's mom comes home early. He's never had the luxury of naked lingering before.

But he's satisfied and mellow, and the way Adam is dragging his fingers through Tommy's hair, rubbing at his scalp, makes him sigh. He turns his head to press a kiss to Adam's collarbone and smiles, kind of sappily, because he can do that. Kiss Adam just because he feels like it. He's allowed.

Tommy likes that thought. _A lot_. He drags his fingers slowly up Adam's arm, from the wrist, past the soft skin at the inside of the elbow, lingering over the strong muscles of Adam's biceps. The clothes Adam wears to school, the button-down shirts and the dorky sweater vests, don't show off his body, but they don't exactly hide it either, and anyway Tommy has seen him in his stage clothes. So, really, he shouldn't have such a sense of revelation about the broadness of Adam's chest, the strength of his thighs, except maybe nakedness always feels like a revelation. He rubs his palm over Adam's belly, and it occurs to him that he could put his mouth there. He rises up on his knees, bracing his hands on the bed, dragging his lips in a circle around Adam's navel.

"Tommy," Adam says, the word sleepily slurred.

"Shouldn't have made me wait so long," Tommy mumbles, kissing Adam's stomach open-mouthed and sloppy. Adam's dick appreciates it, even if the rest of him is still lazily sprawled. Tommy bites at Adam's hipbone, just to see what kind of reaction he can get.

A good one, it turns out. Adam flips him over and kisses _Tommy's_ belly, and when Adam glances up, he's wide awake, a bright spark of _you want it, you're going to get it_. Tommy cries out when Adam's mouth closes around his cock. He keeps up a steady stream of whimpers as Adam sucks him, all the way down, like something out of porn, except that in all the porn Tommy has ever seen it's girls doing this, and that's so not the same at all. Adam hums under his breath, happily, the vibration sending aftershocks all up Tommy's spine, and he rubs against the rumpled covers, hips working in time with his mouth. Okay, so Tommy's sexual experience isn't _that_ extensive, but fuck, he's never, _never_ had someone go down on him who was as seriously turned on by it as Adam is.

"Shit." That's all he manages before he comes in Adam's mouth, his eyes shut, body shaking.

In that split second afterward, when Tommy is still remembering how to breathe, he feels a flash of—almost regret, because it's over, and it was so fucking good, but he still, he wants— He glances up, and Adam is staring down at him, eyes shining and _tender_, and he licks his lips, like Tommy tastes good, and, fuck yes, _that's_ what Tommy wants.

He pushes himself up onto his elbow and gets his hand around Adam's cock. Adam makes a wild, almost pained sound in the back of his throat, and that's, fuck, so good. Tommy bites his lip, and concentrates on doing to Adam the same things he does to himself, hoping Adam will like it, staring because he was too frantic before to properly appreciate Adam's cock. He likes the way it feels against his palm, the heat and the heft, sliding slickly in his grip, and that's still not—he wants— He nudges at Adam's shoulder, guiding him down onto his back, and kneels, wetting his lips in anticipation.

Adam's eyes go wide and surprised and more than a little hopeful, even as he's saying, "You don't have to, not if you don't—"

Tommy darts out his tongue; he's never wondered what a guy's dick tastes like, but the answer is salt and heat, and it's not bad, not bad at all. The logistics, though, are kind of confusing, and Tommy finally gets his mouth around Adam, tries to mimic the things Adam did to him, fumbling, but enthusiastic. Maybe too enthusiastic, really, because he goes down too far, too fast, and starts to choke.

"It's okay, baby. Here. This is enough." Adam guides Tommy until he has just the head of Adam's dick in his mouth. "Use your hand, if you want."

Good idea. Tommy wraps his palm around the shaft, squeezing, and licks at the tip, and, yeah, that works. For Adam too, apparently, because he makes a broken little noise, and Tommy can feel his thighs trembling. That makes him bolder, and he was already eager as hell, and he sucks in earnest, loud and obscene-sounding, spit sliding messily down his chin. He figures Adam won't mind.

Adam strokes Tommy's hair sweetly. "Oh God, baby. Feels so good."

Tommy knows when Adam gets close, the way he tenses and his hips stutter, wanting to thrust, only a fine thread of self-restraint keeping him from doing it.

"Wait. Baby." Adam pushes at Tommy's shoulder, but Tommy hangs on, hand clutching at Adam's thigh. He closes his eyes and sucks harder and tries not to startle when come floods his mouth. At least, he manages to swallow without choking or snorting it out his nose.

He flops down, half sprawled over Adam, head on Adam's chest, floaty and a little light-headed. Adam murmurs something unintelligible and strokes a hand affectionately up and down Tommy's back, and Tommy should be so content. _Is_ content, except for this restless, simmering urge for _more, more, as much as possible, while he still can._ They have all summer before Tommy goes away to school, but he's painfully aware that the days will be over way too soon.

"You can fuck me," he blurts out. "I mean—I want it."

"Maybe after I've had coffee?"

Tommy can hear the smile in Adam's voice, and that should make Tommy smile too. He's in Adam's bed, in Adam's arms, where he's wanted to be for months, but he can't get rid of this coiled, tense feeling in his stomach.

Adam must sense it, because he tightens his arms around Tommy, like he's never going to let go. "Hey." Adam lifts his head to look at Tommy. "What's wrong?"

Tommy doesn't want to say anything about the summer being over too soon, but it just kind of spills out.

"Baby." Adam pulls Tommy over on top of him and kisses him until Tommy relaxes, warm and melty. "You think this is only going to last the summer?" Adam looks up at him, honestly surprised.

Tommy's voice goes small. "I'm going to be in Fresno, and you'll be here, and I didn't know if you'd want—"

Adam smiles at him like, _You're an adorable idiot, you know that?_ "They do have high schools in Fresno, and I am looking for a job."

"Really?" Tommy says hopefully.

Adam nods. "Even when I was telling myself this wasn't, you know, what it is, I still had this plan to keep on being a part of your life, as a friend or whatever. And, okay, maybe this isn't the right moment to bring this up, but Lee had some kind of epiphany when he was in the hospital, and he's dropping out of the band to concentrate on jazz, and I'm supposed to ask you if—"

"Oh my God!" If this day gets any better, Tommy will probably die from it. He wraps his arms around Adam, squeezing hard, until Adam starts making a choked _you're bruising my ribs_ noise.

"I love you," Adam murmurs into Tommy's hair.

"Me too. So much."

Adam strokes a hand over Tommy's hair and tucks Tommy close against his side. There's still this itchy need for everything simmering under Tommy's skin, but it's not tense and desperate the way it was before. His eyes start to slide closed, and he'd like to fight it, because this is about as perfect a moment as he's probably ever going to have. There's just no resisting the tug of unconsciousness, though, and as he slips into sleep, his thoughts are a happy jumble of all the things he has to look forward to: music and school and the future.

And most of all, Adam.

 


End file.
